


Stealing Time

by SophiaCatherine



Series: Did You Miss Me (While You Were Looking For Yourself Out There) [1]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Getting Together, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Post-Oculus Leonard Snart, Time Travel, eventual polyamory, learning to control meta powers, referenced temporary character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2019-11-13 11:17:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18030707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophiaCatherine/pseuds/SophiaCatherine
Summary: When Len reluctantly seeks help from Barry and Iris with strange new time travel powers he can’t control, everything changes. Hereallydidn't expect to fall for both of them. But with his powers wreaking havoc on his body, his time with them may be running out...He looked back down at his blood-streaked hands. “I don’t want this. Don’t want to… fall back into old habits.”Barry and Snart shared an intense gaze. Barry asked, “Can I help?”Iris raised an eyebrow. But it was hardly like she’d never seen that look between them before. If Snart needed help, especially with something as strange as... whatever this was, who better than Barry?The ghost of his old smirk crossed Snart’s face. “Offering to be my sponsor, Barry?”





	1. Thief

**Author's Note:**

> The promised prequel to [How To Date a Supervillain](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17370320). Enjoy!
> 
> Song: [Evaporated](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFBnFyk6VoU) by Ben Folds Five.
> 
> Thanks to [Thette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thette/pseuds/Thette) for wonderful beta reading, as always.

_What I've kept with me and what I've thrown away_ _  
_ _And where the hell I've ended up on this glary random day..._

At first, there was darkness.

No Time and all Time.

At the center of the darkness, a cold blue glow enveloped him.

Then there was noise. It went on for a second. It went on for millennia.

He had the thought—if he could still think here—that the noise would be better if he could understand it.

It resolved into a single note. And then, much later and a moment later, into a Voice.

And the Voice said, “You can go wherever you want. _When_ ever.”

He didn’t understand. Go where? This was where he existed. This was how it had always been, how it would always be.

And then he began to see. Darkness became color, and he saw multiverses upon multiverses. He saw a multiverse where realities were ripped apart, earths crumbling in on each other, cities collapsing together like a cosmic mudslide. He saw one earth in particular, where a trail of yellow lightning ran in and out of the Speed Force.

“Choose,” said the Voice.

In an instant, and a long, long time later, he focused on a single point of light.

And the light became an earth.

And the earth became a city.

And the picture focused on a quiet, dark suburban street, where a house was hung with colourful lights to keep out winter darkness. Where a fire burned against the cold, and, reindeer mug in hand, a Thief was waiting for a Speedster. 

“There,” he said, though he didn’t know why. “...Then?”

“It is too soon,” said the Voice. “They will not understand.”

The picture blurred and reformed. “Just a little later,” said the Voice. "You will need help."

In the darkness, he reached out his hand (huh, he had a hand) towards the glow that was forming into the lights of the Waverider.

He paused. “And then anywhere I want?”

“If you leave, there will be a cost,” the Voice warned, and it sounded almost sad.

He looked back into the darkness, at the blue light at its centre. He looked with eyes that were old and new, and his mouth just about remembered how to pull itself into a smirk. “Isn’t there always?” he drawled.

He stood on the edge of nothing, and fell.

* * *

**October 2018**

Iris West-Allen was perturbed.

Staring at her laptop screen wasn’t helping.

“You’re making that face,” Barry observed from the couch, where he had the TV turned down low with the captions on, to keep from bothering her.

“What face?” she said, without looking up.

“The one that says you’re not finding what you’re looking for.” He was at her side in a literal flash. “Are you in research mode?”

She nodded. His hand came to rest on her shoulder as he looked at her screen, and she reached up to squeeze it on instinct. “You wanna hear about a mystery?” she asked. “It’s in your wheelhouse.”

He offered her a curious smile and pulled up a dining room chair beside her. “Sure. Wow me.”

She flipped to a tab on the browser, watching Barry’s face scrunch into a frown. “I got sent this by a source today.”

The photo was of the back of a man’s head, a familiar shock of graying hair above the fur lining of a hood. It was dark and out of focus, but unmistakable. “That’s Leo, right?” Barry asked. “How’s he back without us knowing?”

“It’s not Leo.”

When reports had first reached Iris of a man in a parka with a cold gun, that had been her first thought, too. She’d had Cisco call Earth-53. Where Leo was only too pleased to have someone to complain to - about having been drafted into politics. “We didn’t win this war just so I could sit behind a desk for the rest of my life, Iris. I’ve got people wanting schools and hospitals. I’m having to make tax plans to pay for them. Save me from this bureaucratic nonsense!”

She’d smiled proudly at him. “That’s how you make a new world, Leo. You’re doing great.” She told him they missed him, and they chatted for a while. Then she ended the call, and went right back to staring at the picture of the man in the ragged blue parka, something very strange stirring in the pit of her stomach.

Barry was frowning at her. “So, then who? Another alternate?”

“Maybe, but...” Iris opened another tab, scrolling through interview transcripts. “Okay, look at these. Eye-witness reports of a man popping into existence right in front of people. At first I didn’t connect them to the photo. But - well, see what you think.” She took a sip from the wine glass in front of her, gesturing at the screen.

He started to read, then pulled back from the screen. “No, she must have been mistaken.”

“The second and third interviews say the same. They all recognized him as Captain Cold.” She shrugged. “In this city? People remember the villains.”

A squeak of a chair on the floor shocked her into looking around at him. He’d gone a funny color. “They’re wrong,” he said. “They’re mistaking Leo for him. Or…” He shook his head.

“Barry,” she said, concerned, with a hand on his arm. He didn’t move, staring at the interview on the screen. “I’m not saying it’s established fact, or even likely. But the team should know that it’s a possibility, right?”

He gave her another tight shake of his head.

Iris raised an eyebrow. “Barry,” she said again, her hand tightening around his arm. “Not only can you run faster than the speed of sound, not only have you met people who can transform into mist and actual aliens who can fly, but not so long ago you very firmly believed in Bigfoot with a lot less evidence than this. After everything we’ve seen, _this_ is too far for you?”

“He’s dead, Iris,” Barry said, his eyes distant. “There’s no coming back from that. Believe me - if there was, we’d have heard about it.” He stood slowly, his head hanging as he went to the bedroom.

Picking up her wine glass, Iris looked back at the photo on the screen. At the torn, ragged parka. The curly, graying hair, longer than when she’d last seen it.

She ignored that knot in her stomach, that might have been... hope.

“What’s happened to you, Leonard?” she wondered aloud.

The wind whistling against the windows of the loft was the only reply she was going to get that night.

* * *

The warehouse was dark and cold. He fumbled with the light switch, got nothing. Well, of course they’d have turned off the power. He reached into his pocket and, sure enough, there was a lighter. Old habits. They used to appear in his pocket almost like magic. Apparently he was still stealing them without thinking, even though he wouldn’t be sliding them into Mick’s pockets anytime soon.

They’d fought, before he left. No fists, this time, which was a good thing, because Leonard didn’t know if his aim was what it used to be. Having all of time rattling around in his head was distracting.

He’d appeared on the Waverider in the dead of night—

(shivering, on the empty bridge, his head full of voices, images, stories that couldn’t all be possible at once)

—and stumbled into the med lab, before asking Gideon to wake Mick.

_Your system is flooded with tachyons, Mr. Snart. Your DNA has been altered in ways that are currently beyond my analysis. I can synthesize a compound that may help, but you will need further observation._

_I don’t know what’s going on with you, and it looks like you ain’t gonna tell me. But - look, for fuck’s sake, you can’t go running back to Central in this state._

Mick had reached out to touch him, and Len had pulled away.

Gideon said just two words to him as he stepped onto the jump ship. “Barry Allen.”

He’d nodded, and glanced back at the Waverider, once.

As soon as Central City shimmered into form around him, he set the controls to send the jump ship back. Apparently, he just wasn’t the thief he used to be.

Now, as he stumbled around looking for candles, a cold wind blew in through a hole in the warehouse roof. At least it was better than the park bench where he’d spent the last couple of weeks, fading in and out of consciousness, then wandering the city aimlessly. This was as close to home as he was going to get.

The couch was still there, right where he had debated with Mick about whether to accept Rip’s ridiculous offer of a trip through time. It felt like yesterday, and eons ago. He sprawled out across it, reaching beneath for the comic book he knew would still be there.

“Well. Here we are,” he said aloud into the darkness.

If there were any ghosts left in the old safe house, they were all silent.

He was just wondering if there was still a drip coffee maker in the makeshift kitchen in the back, when the dark scene began to blur and fade around him.

“Shit, not again,” he heard himself say, before the world tilted sideways with a _crack_ louder than when the Oculus went up in flames. He curled in on himself under the sudden urge to vomit, while reality ripped down the centre.

He staggered out of the bright, crowded factory full of men in Victorian-era work clothes before anyone could see him.

He made it to the waterfront, where, after emptying the contents of his stomach into the river, he curled up against a pillar under a bridge. He didn’t remember anything after that.

Morning broke to the sound of passing cars and kids on skateboards. Whatever uncontrolled power had taken him away, it had at least brought him back again. That was how it always happened.

He didn’t understand why.

He didn’t understand any of this.

He dragged himself back to the couch in the cold warehouse, where he listened, for a long time, to the wind whistling and moaning in the roof.

* * *

**November 2018**

They got their answer one cold day about a month later. Iris had been sick for a day or two, curled up on the sofa, Barry close but keeping a healthy distance. They’d got to talking—about Nora, probably—in the commercial break, and the TV had run on into the evening news report.

_“Tonight, a Picture News exclusive: He’s back, Central City! Captain Cold caught on film. But does he still mean us harm? We go live now to Lana Lang...”_

Iris felt a sharp grip on her upper arm. She didn’t look up, peering at the screen with keen reporter’s eyes for any sign that this was _their_ Leonard Snart. The camera panned in closer, and the pressure on her arm tightened.

The parka was frayed at the edges. It couldn’t have been the original, but it wasn’t far off. But the cold gun was identical to the one she remembered.

The scene was pandemonium in front of the First Bank on State Street. The citizens of Central remembered that gun.

It was his face that settled it, though. There was something dark and desperate in his eyes.

“That,” Barry said slowly, “is not Leo.”

“I won’t say I told you so.” Iris poked him in the side. “Well, don’t just sit there. He’s holding up a _bank_. Didn’t you used to stop him from doing things like that?”

“Yeah, but…” He shook his head and looked back at the screen. “Do I need Cisco in my ear for this?”

Iris followed his gaze to where a snarling Leonard Snart had his gun trained on a screaming teller. For Barry’s sake, she made herself sound sure and confident. “If you can handle this on your own, maybe you should?” As Snart shot a blast of ice towards the terrified crowd, she heard doubt creeping back into her voice. “You could take me to STAR Labs if you want help over the comms…”

“You’ve thrown up twice tonight. I’m not speeding you anywhere.”

“Fair enough.” She wanted to tell him that he could do this. It was just one criminal, and it had been a long time since a human with a gun had been any kind of challenge to him. But she was suddenly nervous, reaching up to kiss his cheek. “Be safe.”

A spark of lightning in the air, and he was gone.

She looked back at the screen, at Leonard’s sneering face and shaking hands. There was something very wrong with this scene.

Barry didn’t show back up for a couple of hours, and she went to bed, hoping he’d just stopped by STAR Labs. That this foreboding feeling was about the too-many enemies they’d had near misses with, and nothing more.

When he finally made it home, he was ashen-faced. She dragged herself up and put her arms around him, felt him trembling against her. “What happened?” she asked into his shoulder.

“It was him,” he murmured.

She let out a hard breath. “He got away?”

He pulled away and dropped to the edge of the bed, where she slid in next to him. “We fought. I’m not even sure he recognized me at first. He was a ranting mess, I don’t even…” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “And then I think he did figure out who I was. One minute he was in front of me - he had the gun right in my face. And I…” He trailed off again, frowning, as though trying to work something out.

She touched his shoulder, worried. “Barry?”

He turned his gaze on her. “I touched him. And he disappeared.”

“What do you mean, disappeared?”

“He just—” He shrugged helplessly. “Blinked out of existence. There was… a blue light.” He glanced at her with an unreadable expression. “How’s that for your mystery, reporter?”

She reached over to her nightstand for her tablet. Pulling up the interview document, she ran her eyes down the transcripts again. “It’s what they all say. He appeared or disappeared right in front of them. I thought they were exaggerating. I mean, he is pretty stealthy.”

“That was more than stealth. What’s wrong with him?”

Iris took his shaking hands in hers, rubbing them. They were - cold. “I wish I knew.”

“What if he’s—” He cut off, started again. “What if he’s not okay, Iris?”

In answer, she pulled him down onto the bed with her and curled against him. She couldn’t begin to guess at what he was feeling, but he grounded her amidst her own unsettled mess of reactions. He always did.

They fell asleep to the _thump, thump_ of the wind against the loose window.

* * *

It wasn’t his fault.

Len kept repeating that in his head, like a mantra.

(it was his fault)

Shaking on the floor of the warehouse was doing him no good. His hands were turning white with cold again. The dusty stone floor was wet with the rain seeping in through the hole in the roof. There was more than enough money stashed in the back room now to get him a motel, somewhere with nice things like central heating and a kitchen, but here he still was.

He couldn’t trust himself around people.

Accidents kept happening. Accidents like… what happened tonight.

(he closed his eyes against the rush of images, blue and white and a frigid blast from his gun and a boy lying so still on the ground)

But he’d been here alone for weeks now.

Beyond the window, a sudden flash of lightning had him curling protectively around himself.

_Lightning._

“All right, Gideon,” he said aloud, pulling himself up off the floor. “You better know what you’re talking about.” He grimaced. “And _this_ better work.”

He closed his eyes, and thought of a speedster in red.

An apartment began forming around him, in long shadows first, then details.

Two people, asleep in bed in a darkened room, lit by halos of moonlight and streetlight.

When he appeared somewhere, jumping through time or space or both, he did it silently. Sometimes there was a brief flash of blue light. But he was the only one who could hear the universe ripping apart to force him through. To everyone else, he arrived as quiet as a thief in the night.

So they were still asleep, Barry’s arm curled around Iris like she was the most precious thing in his world.

He couldn’t breathe, the domestic scene hitting him like a fist in his gut. It was everything he hadn’t had for… a lot longer than just the past few weeks.

He grit his teeth and took a step towards the bed. In his very best Captain Cold voice, as low and dangerous as he could manage, he said, “Well, well, well.”

Iris sat bolt upright.

Barry... flashed. But this time, Len saw it coming. “Don’t,” he said. “You’ll regret it. No - _I’ll_ regret it.”

Barry came to an abrupt stop in front of him. “ _What?"_

He didn’t bother to explain. “Deja-vu, Barry,” he said, hoping his smirk wasn’t giving him away, that it wasn't just a shadow of itself. “But then you always did like appreciating a moment _over and over_ again, didn’t you?”

Barry’s eyes flashed bright with lightning in the still-dark room. Everything about him was screaming _danger_  at Len, stamping down on the hair trigger that told him to run. But just a few hours ago, Barry had watched him shoot a man with the cold gun, and maybe Len deserved everything the hero was about to do to him.

Barry didn’t break his angry stare, now so close that Len could feel his breath on his face. But, as requested, he didn’t touch him. “Who are you?” he demanded. “You’re not Leo.”

“Barry!” Iris took a step forward, and her eyes met Len’s. He shoved his twitching hands into his pockets as her glance took them in.

Her husband whirled around to look at her. “He tried to kill a man tonight, Iris! Not even a - just a kid!”

“Is he dead?” Len asked in a mutter. He picked a dark spot on the nice hardwood floor to stare at.

Barry seemed to remember him, folding his arms defensively across his chest as he stood between Len and Iris. “He’s okay. No thanks to you. I had to run him out of there. Have you seen what your gun does to a human body, Snart? You’re damn lucky Caitlin knows how to deal with the results.” Len felt his lips thin, but he refused to rise to that bait. “And don’t even try to tell me you didn’t mean to kill him.”

“Oh,” Len said, aiming for the same dangerous tone, “I meant every blast of it.” He raised his eyes towards Barry. The speedster was standing between him and the window. Lit up by low street lighting behind him, he cast a long, dark shadow.

(not safe)

And he didn’t know if the voice echoing in his head meant Barry, or himself.

Iris took a careful step forward. “Then why did you come here?” Her voice was everything Barry’s wasn’t - soft, worried.

Barry scoffed, fists forming at his sides. “That’s not the question we should be focusing on right now, Iris.”

“No,” Iris said, voice still so soft it made Len _ache_. “I think it is.” She hadn’t broken her shared gaze with Len, looking at him like he… mattered. It was decidedly uncomfortable.

“Are you our Leonard Snart?” Barry's own voice was on the verge of yelling.

Snart raised a trembling hand to the wall behind him, steadying himself. “Now there’s a question, Barry.”

Barry narrowed suspicious eyes. “Are you going to explain that?”

Iris laid a gentle hand on her husband’s shoulder. He looked like he was shaking with rage under her touch. 

Len shrank back suddenly against the wall, his hands splayed against it. He didn’t want to think about what an unlikely figure of terror he cast in his parka. Or what he was afraid of.

“Another day, maybe,” he said, with an unsteady tremor in his drawl.

He strode past them without another word, but he saw Iris’s hand tighten on Barry’s shoulder, heard her murmur, “Don’t.”

Maybe she thought they owed him a chance. Whatever the reason, they let him leave.

* * *

**January, 2019**

For a while after that, the Leonard Snart trail went cold. Iris exploited all the tricks of the trade she knew, but there was no sign of him.

“Well, he was always good at going underground,” was all Barry would say. It was the most he had said about Snart since the night they’d seen him.

Snart. Alive again. It was… a lot.

Iris and Barry had always talked about everything, but it had taken him a while to tell her about his feelings for Snart. Pulling him out of Siberia had been the catalyst. Barry had poured his heart out to her about how he had always felt about the thief. How guilty he'd felt, wanting _him_ even while they were pulling the heist that was all about rescuing _her_.

Iris had kissed him, and told him he wasn’t the only one who was attracted to Snart. Even though they both knew that, for Barry, this went way beyond simple attraction.

But it had all been hypothetical. He’d been dead. And now?

Over coffee at Jitters, she even asked Nora if she knew a Leonard Snart in the future. Her daughter’s face stayed uncharacteristically blank, hiding behind her mug. She just said, “Spoilers, Mom. Geez. Have you learned nothing from Dad’s escapades?”

One night, a couple of months after Snart's last appearance, they were coming in from a late dinner out. Flash business had kept them at STAR Labs so long that neither of them could face cooking. A couple of glasses of wine later, they were both in fits of giggles - Iris a bit tipsy, Barry picking up her mood. She was leaning back against the wall, watching her superhero being totally adorable as he struggled with the apartment door. “I don’t know, it’s stuck!”

“It’s not stuck, it’s you. Just grab the thing and turn.”

He grinned at her as he tried to force the key. “Is that a euphemism for something?”

“I will kill you, Allen.”

Pouting, he rattled the unyielding key. “Can’t I just phase us through the door?”

“No, you can do one thing slowly like a normal person for once. Oh, give it here!”

Still laughing, they clattered into the apartment, and—

The silhouette at the window formed the unmistakable shape of a parka hanging off a thin frame.

So much thinner than when they’d last seen him.

“The trouble, Barry,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper, “is that I’m not sure what’s real anymore.”

Barry turned on the light.

Snart didn’t turn around.

Iris took a few slow steps towards him. Behind her, she felt Barry hesitate, but stay where he was.

Snart kept talking in a low mutter, as though he wasn’t sure either of them was going to respond. “So I went back to my old stomping grounds. Thieving is real. The cold gun is real. No, wait. Not sure about that either.” He laid a hand on the gun, where it rested on his leg, and a shock of horror ran through Iris.

The cold gun shouldn't exist, anymore than Snart should.

“Leonard—” Iris started.

Snart whirled around, his face cold with rage.

“You did this,” he snarled at Barry. “You made me - this.” He strode towards Barry, who still didn’t move.

“I made you what?” Barry asked softly, reaching out a hand towards Snart like he was coaxing out a spooked animal.

Snart flinched and took a step back. Iris remembered last time, when he’d warned Barry not to touch him. What had he said?

“This,” Snart repeated. “ _Hero._ ” He grimaced. “Did you know I _died_ to save them, Barry?”

Eyes wide, Barry nodded.

_I'm sorry, Barry. I forgot that we never told you._

Barry had been inconsolable when it hit him, a few days later. _I_ _t was my fault, Iris._

“We heard.” Barry’s voice was deceptively even, but he wasn’t fooling her. “Snart, how are you back?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care.” He raised a hand, black with dried blood. The horror of a hundred possibilities hit Iris like a punch to the stomach. “Just need to know what’s real. But I don’t...” His chin came up, defiant. “This isn’t helping. Not the old ways.”

Barry’s brow was tightly furrowed. “What happened?”

Snart lowered his hands in front of his face and shrugged. “Fought my way outta something. Don’t worry. Didn’t break your precious _r_ _ules._ I know how much you need everyone to be as much of a _hero_ as you.” He tilted his head. “Why d’you do this to me, Barry? Why can’t I just go back…” Trailing off again, he turned back to the window. “You did this.”

Barry took a slow, careful step forward. “Then let us help.”

Iris almost laughed out loud. Her Barry Allen. Who would he be if he didn’t try to save everyone?

“Oh,” Snart said, some of his old drawl returning, “I think you’ve done enough.”

“Then why are you here?”

There was a dull hint of vulnerability in Snart’s eyes. “Didn’t have anywhere else to go.” His gaze shifted to Iris, as though seeing her for the first time. “Don’t waste your time trying to save people who don’t want to be saved,” he murmured, a little robotic, like he was quoting something.

“But you do,” Barry said, as though trying the concept on for size. “That’s why you’ve been looking for us.”

He turned back to the window, his shoulders sinking in a sigh. “Woke up on the Waverider a few months ago. Spent less than a night there - I didn’t bother her good crew. Turned out, I’d missed three years. And there were… complications.” His voice dropped into a mutter again. “I remember things that can’t be real. Can’t remember things that should be.”

“What do you need?” Iris tried. “Can we help find out why you’re back? We could call the Legends—”

“ _No,_ ” he snarled, spinning on his heel, face like an ice storm. “No Legends.” He stumbled back against the window. “Don’t care why I’m back. Just - please.”

“Okay.” Barry took another step forward, his hands raised. “So what can we do?”

Snart stared down at his own blood-streaked hands. “I don’t want this. Don’t want to… fall back into old habits.”

He looked up again, and he and Barry shared an intense gaze for a moment. Barry asked, “Can I help?”

Iris raised an eyebrow. But it was hardly like she’d never seen that look between them before. Watching them share something that was entirely different from Barry's connection with her, she was vaguely aware that she didn't feel any jealousy - nothing but concern for Snart. If he needed help, especially with something as strange as... whatever this was, who better than Barry?

The ghost of his old smirk crossed Snart’s face. “Offering to be my sponsor, Barry?”

Barry huffed a little laugh. “Maybe something a bit less offensive to recovering alcoholics.”

“Ouch,” Snart said, his eyes still distant.

“You can come and find us whenever you need us,” Barry said, his voice soothing.

Snart glanced at Iris. “Us?”

Out of her depth, Iris just nodded.

He looked between them, and the shadow of a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. Barry turned to Iris, about to speak—

There was a flash of blue light.

When they looked back again, Snart was... gone.

“Thief in the night,” Iris murmured, quoting something she only half remembered.

Barry's eyes were flashing with the effort of holding himself back from running after a ghost. “Why is he back?” 

Iris blinked towards the door that Snart hadn’t used. “More to the point - Barry, where did he go?”

Barry just shook his head. 

In the silence, the wind sighed through the wedged-open window where Snart had been standing. 

 _Woke up way too late feeling hungover and old_  
_And the sun was shining bright, I walked barefoot down the road..._


	2. Unmoored

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Iris went thoughtfully back to her cooking._
> 
> _She hadn’t missed how he’d looked at her, his eyes darkening._
> 
> _He came back a few times, in the next few weeks. Ringing the doorbell. Looking at her like she was his salvation._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks once again to Thette for excellent beta reading.

_Don't you know I'm numb, man? No I can't feel a thing at all_  
_'Cause it's all smiles and business these days and I'm indifferent to the loss  
_

**February, 2019**

Barry thought he was a pretty smart guy. Most of the time. Sure, he could run into a wall at 350 mph if he wasn’t looking where he was going, and he failed woodshop class four semesters in a row till they finally threw a C at him and said “Please leave now, Barry.” But he was top of his field and had an IQ of exactly 150. (He took the IQ test online one boring night when he’d run out of comics to read. He’d bet Iris he could score over 150 and she’d put money on him being 150 or less. She pocketed her winning twenty bucks with a pat on the back and the quip, “Sure you’re smart, but a smarter person wouldn’t have bet against me.”)

But… People. Feelings. Sometimes these mysteries of the universe were still beyond him.

So, of course it had taken him till Siberia to realise that his flirting with Snart was more than innocent banter. That Barry wouldn’t have just let the thief get away with the things he did, unless he’d felt something for him.

And then the guy _died_ , and it knocked something loose inside Barry.

And now? Here he was. With powers that he described, in that ever helpful Snart way, as “time travel powers, Barry, now stop asking pointless questions.”

It was stirring things up that Barry thought he’d buried.

He was trying to push it all back down, because Snart needed him. But the thief had one hell of a way of showing it. After their first planned meeting, to which Snart had turned up, made awkward small talk and left as soon as he could get out of there without looking like a complete fucking asshole, Iris had walked in on Barry standing at an open window in their loft.

“You’re shivering,” she said, wrapping her arms around him.

He’d leaned against her silently, gratefully, while they both pretended tears weren’t leaking from his tightly-shut eyes. He wanted to ask her what was wrong with him, and did people always react like this when someone they… when someone came back from the dead. The ridiculousness of the question had him choking out a laugh into her shoulder.

But neither of them seemed to want to talk about it. Not yet.

The only thing he could think of to do was to stand in the Cortex running through questions and possible answers.

“Why now?” Barry asked, staring at the whiteboard and chewing on the end of a pen. _September, 2018_ was written at the top - roughly when Snart thought he’d turned up back on the Waverider. Underlined twice. Beneath it were listed possible catalysts for his return, in Cisco’s sarcastic hand.

  * Barry coming back from the Speed Force (too early? does that matter? do we even understand time travel logic yet?)
  * Anything Snart did with the Legends (do we know anything Snart did with the Legends? do we know anything about anything?)
  * A timey-wimey effect of the Oculus explosion (yes I’m calling it that)



Ignoring the list, Barry tapped on the date with his pen. “Do you think the timing is important?”

Spinning in his chair, Cisco shook his head. “I dunno, man. I can’t make heads or tails of this. Not without more data. And you really don’t want me to call Sara? It’s a quick vibe-and-breach job. I can find them anywhere.”

Barry shook his head at the board. “No Legends. He was pretty clear about that.”

“Guess you’re gonna have to persuade him to come in. See what we can get him doing with those time travel powers,” Cisco said, wearing a dull smile that made it very clear what he thought of that idea.

“Guess so,” Barry said.

“Guess that means I’m gonna have to work with the jerk,” Cisco said, smile still fixed in place. He rolled back from the desk, pushing the chair with his feet, and getting up. He put a hand on Barry’s shoulder. “And, uh, just a suggestion, but - have you tried talking to him?”

“That’s not going so well,” Barry replied, still staring at the whiteboard.

He glanced up to see Iris watching him and chewing her lip.

“I think you’re asking the wrong questions,” she told him, later that night. “It doesn’t matter to him why he’s back, does it? So why does it matter so much to you?”

Barry put down his coffee mug.

He found Snart slipping into his thoughts more and more, recently. Of course, it was just worry for a friend. And professional concern, for how his weird time shifting might be affecting the timeline.

“He _says_ it doesn’t matter to him,” Barry replied. “It might. Especially if we want to help him master these powers.”

Iris raised an eyebrow at him. “And is that what he wants?”

He paused. Iris asked better questions than him. Always had, even long before she was a journalist. “I don’t know, really. We’ve only had one meeting, since...” He glanced at his watch. “I’m meeting him again at Jitters tonight.”

She shot him a wry grin. “And what’s he calling this now? Support group meetings?”

Barry snorted, reaching for her hand. Iris threaded her fingers through his, and he watched frown lines appearing on her face. He reached out to thumb them at the corner of her eye, drawing a little smile from her. She’d been on edge, recently, as though all this stuff with Snart was affecting her, and not just the weirdness of it all. Was she worried about him? “I can’t imagine him wanting anything nearly that touchy-feely,” he answered. “I’m just happy he’s willing to meet at all.”

“You think he thinks you’ll speed him to Iron Heights if he doesn’t?”

Did he? It hadn’t occurred to Barry. But Snart had sought _them_ out - twice. Barry shook his head. “Even in his state, he knows how to evade attention if he wants to. He’s really asking for help.”

Still smiling, Iris raised an eyebrow. “You know he’s a master manipulator.”

“Yeah, but…”

He paused.

A flash of memory. Barry lying on the ground at Ferris Air, Snart crouching above him.

Barry had never handled betrayal well. Later, back at the Labs, he’d torn half the speed room apart, and sworn he’d never trust that man again. But everyone deserved a second chance. Okay, maybe it was a twelfth chance, in Snart’s case… but things had changed. At least, he hoped they had.

His jaw tight, Barry shook his head firmly. “No. I don’t think he’s manipulating us - not this time. I think he really wants our help.”

But that night, sitting in Jitters opposite an empty chair until closing time, he wondered if he’d been wrong about that.

Again.

* * *

He didn’t know if he’d _meant_ it, when he’d asked Barry to be his… sponsor? Leonard Snart didn’t ask for help.

He didn’t need anyone’s help.

Still, that night he found himself sprawled out on the floor of the warehouse, staring at the stars through the missing patch of roof, and wondering whether he was really seeing them, or—

(the Oculus exploded, and he saw everything in time and space, all at once)

(and now he couldn’t stop seeing it no no it wouldn’t _stop_ )

That was when he remembered he was supposed to be on the other side of town, meeting Barry Allen for one of those ridiculous meetings. Barry, who was so good. Too good for him, especially when he looked at Len like _that._

No. He couldn't. Not while bright, terrifying visions of the whole of time and space, all shoved into one human being’s fragile brain

(too fragile too weak)

were still fading from behind his eyes.

When he could breathe and stand again, he attempted to materialize the West-Allens’ apartment around him. It had no effect, except to make him sound constipated. “Sure,” he muttered, on his fourth attempt. “I wake up in strange times and places three times a night, but try just one trip to the other side of the city, and suddenly, nothing.” He shook his head at the stars. “Fuck you.”

So he put Plan B into action.

He broke into the apartment without making a sound, an old habit that he’d barely had to think about. The smell of spaghetti sauce was filling the loft, together with the sound of a bubbling pot and Iris’s low, beautiful singing.

She was glaring at her pot of pasta, throwing down a spoon on the counter and muttering at the offending saucepan, probably with more feeling than she’d ever directed at any dangerous meta.

It was the kind of domestic scene he once would have hated. Now it pulled another jealous jolt of desire from him, for things - people - he’d never be able to have.

Fuck it. Why the hell did he keep coming back to this apartment?

But at this point, leaving without getting caught would have been a challenge even for him, so he cleared his throat loudly. “Good evening, Ms. West-Allen.” It came out in more of a drawl than he intended.

She startled, eyes widening. For a minute he wondered if she was going to throw him out. Then she coughed out a sigh that was half relief, half irritation. “Snart, don’t you ever _knock_  like a normal person?”

He could feel that his replying smirk was weak. Probably strained and sad, if his last few glances in the cracked mirror at the back of the warehouse were anything to go by. Just as long as he wasn’t letting any of that show.

Iris lifted a finger to ask him to wait, turning down the stove burner. He took another step towards her. Her rings were sparkling under the kitchen lighting. They were lovely - just the sort of classy thing Barry would give to his stunner of a wife.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at Jitters with my husband?” she asked, an eyebrow raised in a hint of judgment.

“Decided I’d rather be here.” At her eyebrow creeping higher, he added, “You did say you’d _both_ be willing to help.” He was aiming for his usual snark, but the thought that he might really have disappointed her was oddly unsettling.

Then her lips turned up in that beautiful smile of hers, and everything was okay again. “Coffee?” she asked.

He grimaced, pushing his trembling hands into the pockets of his parka. “Got anything stronger?” She’d very obviously clocked the shaking before he’d shoved them out of view, but she said nothing, just reached down and took out a bottle from under the counter. He tilted his head in surprise - he’d been expecting something more like medicinal whiskey than intimate red wine, but he nodded. Whatever she was playing at, he’d bite.

They sat on opposite ends of the couch, in front of the fire, Snart hiking one leg above the other while Iris folded her hands in her lap and watched him.

The flickering flames were a spell he shouldn’t have given into. In his head, he was already somewhere else. A ghost slipping into someone else’s timeline.

“Sorry,” he said, glancing up at her patient face after who knew how long. He didn’t know if he deserved that. “I’m being rude.”

“I don’t think it’s your fault,” she said, far too kindly. There was pity in her smile, but it was still a smile, and it was for him. He’d take what he could get.

(he always did)

He sighed and ran his fingers along the stem of his wine glass.

“You seem a little better, though?”

“A little,” he echoed, swirling the wine around in his glass. “Not up to anything illegal, if that’s what’s worrying you,” he said, hearing the defensive tone in his own voice.

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” She was trying to meet his eye. He turned back to the fire. “Leonard, I have a few questions…”

He chuckled. “Ever the roving reporter. I can respect that. Ask away.”

“You really just woke up on the Waverider?”

He nodded at the fire. “With a head full of visions and memories that weren’t mine.” He blinked a few times, his chest tight again. From the corner of his eye he watched her watching him, and tried not to imagine what he must look like right about now. “It’s quite a trip, Ms. West-Allen.”

“Iris, please.”

He smiled, and turned to look at her properly. And maybe he could see what Barry saw in her. A heart full of kindness and steel. She was something, all right.

“How are you living?” she was asking. “Where?”

He raised his eyebrows at his wine glass. “Think I’ll keep the ‘where’ to myself for now. How…” He laughed quietly. “I had some assets in a few safe places.”

“Of course you did,” she murmured.

Before he could catch himself, he was giving her one of those half smiles he’d aimed at pretty girls and boys, back in the day. It was a pleasant surprise when she looked bashfully away, hiding her own smile behind her hand.

Her next question took him by surprise. “Are you okay?”

He blew out a long breath, sitting back against the couch. “Don’t know. I guess the trips through time are getting less frequent, but I still get a little hazy. Weird visions. And these wrong memories…” He tapped the side of his head as one washed over him, found himself muttering “Legion,” to himself.

Iris frowned. “Huh?”

“Nothing.” He shifted in his seat. “Don’t suppose you know a shrink who’s got experience with this kind of weird shit, do you, Iris?”

She laughed, bowing her head towards her wine glass and raising her eyes to sneak a look at him. “After all this time, you’d think we would. But no, not really. We can’t even tell our own counselor about Flash stuff.”

He tilted his head curiously at her. “My, my, Iris. What does the strongest woman I know need to see a _counselor_ for?”

“That.” She raised a meaningful eyebrow. “There’s a lot of stress that comes with this life.”

“I’d imagine so.”

Her eyes narrowed in a moment of suspicion. “Why didn’t you meet Barry?”

“Called Jitters, left a message.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t… up to reasonable conversation.”

She huffed. “Could have fooled me.”

A chuckle escaped him. “You’re not quite as intimidating as your superhero husband. But just as badass,” he added, to draw out her smile. It worked. And it was true, which helped.

He glanced at the door that Barry would be walking through in 4 minutes and 11 seconds. He still couldn’t face the hero himself. Pushing himself up, he tapped the couch between them. “I’ve taken up enough of your time. Thank you, Iris. Really.”

Her look of worry was back. “Are you sure? You could stay for dinner.” He just shook his head. “Well, you can come back whenever you need to, Leonard. You know that, right?”

The rush of gratitude was strange. “I know.” He glanced back at her with a smile. “You should look into a way to protect yourself, Iris. The next time someone breaks in, it could be someone much more dangerous than me.”

Something dark crossed her face. There was a hint of the warrior in her eyes, and they were sadder than he’d ever seen them. “I’ve had a gun under the sink ever since DeVoe framed Barry,” she said in a flat voice.

He tilted his head. She was quite the beguiling mystery. “Who?”

“Never mind.” She smiled, so much like the sun coming out that his breath caught in his chest. “Be good, Len.”

“If I can’t, I’ll look you up again,” he said, aiming for a teasing smirk.

Pulling the door closed behind him, he heard her calling out, “Use the doorbell next time.” He smiled into the dark, empty hallway.

* * *

Iris went thoughtfully back to her cooking.

She hadn’t missed how he’d looked at her, his eyes darkening.

He came back a few times, in the next few weeks. Ringing the doorbell. Looking at her like she was his salvation.

Sometimes he kept his appointments with Barry, though he said he wasn’t sure why Leonard even bothered. “He’s closed off,” he told her one day, lying next to her in the dark. “Like there are things he wants to say that he can’t.”

“Sounds like him,” was all she could offer.

She lay awake long after Barry had fallen asleep, listening to his regular breathing next to her, reliable and comforting, wondering if Barry even knew that they were both in love with Leonard Snart. And wondering how the hell Leonard would feel about that.

He’d come into their lives like an ice storm, shaking up their comfortable routine, and she had no idea what any of them was going to do about it.

* * *

**March 2019**

It took one more freakout before Barry finally got Snart to agree to come into STAR Labs.

Standing in the middle of Jitters holding his coffee, scanning the room, he was about to give up on Snart again. He didn’t know why the thief was even still bothering to arrange these little standing appointments. It wasn’t like Snart was getting anything out of them, as far as Barry could see.

He turned to go - and stopped. There was a dark figure curled up on a single armchair in the corner, clutching his parka tight around him like a lifejacket in a stormy sea.

He crouched down by the chair. “Hey, Snart,” he said softly.

“Don’t touch me,” was the first thing he said, in a raspy voice. Barry withdrew his hand.

“Did you… go somewhere again?”

A pause. Then, “Yeah.” He glanced up at Barry, his eyes hooded. “I shouldn’t be around this many people. Shouldn’t… But I didn’t want to be alone.”

“It’s okay,” was all Barry could think of to say, helplessness rushing over him like a wave.

He took him home to Iris, the only one of the two of them who was currently allowed to touch Snart, apparently. Barry ignored the stab of jealousy when she wrapped her arms around Snart and, shaking, he sank against her.

It was only later that Barry realised he hadn’t been jealous because of Iris. He’d been jealous _of_ her.

* * *

The next day, Len found himself going _willingly_ to STAR Labs to be poked and prodded by their good doctor. Not even a word of complaint. He really was losing his edge.

He lounged against the wall of the medical room, pretending not to be at least a little bit diverted by watching Snow attempting to run tests on a man who wouldn’t lie on the bed.

“He’s here,” he overheard Barry hissing in her ear. “Don’t scare him off.”

That had him repressing an actual smile.

“Barry,” Snow said, carrying a folder full of print-outs back from her computer, “can I talk to Snart alone?”

“I do have a first name, you know,” he drawled at her, when Barry had wandered off looking like a puppy that no one wanted to play with.

The doc put her hand on her hip, staring him down without any sign she was the least bit cowed by him. “So do I.”

He grinned, sitting in the chair she indicated opposite hers. “Touché. Caitlin.”

“So, Leonard.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You seem… better than Barry said you were last night.”

He schooled his face into his very best neutral Captain Cold mask. Which wasn’t as good as it used to be. Death will ruin you that way, he thought, sighing as Caitlin stumbled over another go at being tactful about the whole damn mess. “Look, doc, I appreciate the concern, but can we skip the small talk and get to the part where you tell me what the hell is wrong with me? I’m a big boy, no kid gloves needed.”

She sat back in her chair, looking from him to her notes and back again. “Okay. Tell me what’s going on when these episodes happen.”

He didn’t comment on the medicalized language, as much as he wanted to snap at her that he wasn’t _sick_. “Different every time. Sometimes I’m just minding my own business and away I go. Sometimes I’m asleep, even, and wake up somewhere - or when - else.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Asleep.”

She’d noticed his hands fidgeting in front of him, against his will. Never would have happened before, back when he used to calculate every movement for maximum impact. He’d shot people for lesser betrayals than his own body was putting him through these days. Clasping his hands tight in front of him, he said, “You know what, doc? I’m really fucking tired of this shit. So if you can help me, I’ll tell you whatever you need to know.” He let his eyes drift up to the ceiling. “I never did sleep very well. Nightmares. Worse now than they—” He caught himself, shook his head. “Night’s a bad time.”

She nodded slowly. “Can you tell me about times you’ve, uh, _traveled_  during the day?”

He chewed on the inside of his cheek, mulling that over. Things had been chaotic, and he wasn’t sure his once-eidetic memory was even working that way anymore. “When I moved back into the place I’m staying. The two evenings I turned up at Iris and Barry’s loft…”

She held up a hand. “Let’s start there. What was happening each of those times?”

Full disclosure, he reminded himself, or she couldn’t help. “Both times I ended up in the loft were a little fraught,” he admitted. “The first time, I thought I’d killed a guy.”

She was giving him an odd look. She glanced down at something on one of the charts in front of her. “Leonard, this is just a guess. To be more certain, I’d need to do more tests, ideally compare some readings soon after you’ve traveled. But I think this might be partly driven by emotions.”

He blinked at her, against a sudden irrational heat rising inside him. “You got the wrong guy, doc. I don’t have those.”

Caitlin leaned forward. “I’m sure that‘s far from true.” He frowned at the floor as she asked, “Have I told you about Killer Frost?”

The strange name had him looking back up at her. “No.”

Her smile turned fond. “Somehow, I’ve a feeling you’d like her. I won’t introduce you today - I’m guessing you’ve been freaked out enough recently - but, uh, she’s my alter ego. My... meta half, if you will.”

Huh. “Well, isn’t everyone just full of surprises recently?”

“She comes out when my system is flooded with adrenaline. When I’m scared, or angry. Or even—” She cut off, blushing as red as Scarlet, and busied herself with her papers for a second. “Or even when I’m attracted to someone,” she finished.

“My, my, Caitlin,” he said. “What _are_ you insinuating?”

“Just that all kinds of things can be triggers for the meta gene - or something like it.”

He sat back in his seat. “And that’s what you think is wrong with me? Meta genes?”

“I think it might be.” She put her file down. “But that’s going to require a much longer conversation about things that might be a little more traumatic. Like what you think precipitated all of this.”

In the corner of the room, a lone lollipop had rolled under Caitlin’s desk. He stared at it, fighting the feeling of a hand clenching around his chest. “You want me to tell you about the Oculus.”

“Yes.”

She kindly waited while he paused. He croaked, “Can we work up to that?”

”Of course.” She laid a hand on his arm, just briefly. “You’re doing great, Leonard.”

He managed not to wince at the backhanded compliment, so typical of respectable professionals. Doctors, social workers, judges - always so keen to tell him he could be more than he was. As though he wasn’t already the best at anything he cared about. It was all about a difference of perspective. They thought he was a waste of space. He didn’t.

But when he glanced over at the good doctor, her sincere smile was a surprise. “And why do you say that, Caitlin?”

She tilted her head. “Still here, aren’t you?”

He was left contemplating what she meant by that for a few minutes, while she went to find Barry.

Maybe, he thought, just maybe, everything was going to be okay.

He should have known that would be _exactly_ when it all fell apart.

* * *

He didn’t know how long he waited outside Iris West-Allen’s front door. He just knew she arrived after the tears had finished running down his cheeks.

She came to lean against the wall beside him. He was profoundly grateful when she stayed silent, waiting for him.

He gripped her hand tight and whispered, “I didn’t want to break in.”

She let out the tiniest of soft laughs, so gentle. Kindness and steel. “I think there are exceptions to that rule, Leonard.”

He didn’t look at her, not wanting to see the pity in her eyes. He already knew how pathetic it sounded when his breath hitched and he said, “But I told you I wouldn’t.”

He refused her help getting to the couch, when she offered it. He wasn’t falling apart this time. He was just... sad.

There was a black hole in his chest, and he’d put it there.

When she ran a hand over his, he didn’t pull away. “You’re freezing.”

“It’s on theme.” Eyes locked with hers, he laid a hand on her cheek and brushed his fingers down it. So beautiful. He felt his eyes unfocusing… and he came back. “I can see it,” he murmured.

“What, Leonard?”

“Your timeline - lines. It changed. More than once.”

He watched the shudder run through her shoulders.

He’d asked Gideon about the Flash once, and found out more than he really wanted to know. And now he could see them - scars, running like lightning figures through the timeline. Barry had hacked whole chunks out of it. Before everything that happened with the Legends, he might have found that horrifying. People weren’t supposed to _know_ that the multiverse was such a fragile place. That it cared so little for them that it would let a demigod erase them in a flash of light.

But he'd seen and heard much worse since then.

Iris caught his hand in her own, where he was holding on to her cheek like an anchor. “It’s okay, Leonard.”

“It’s really not,” he murmured. “I keep… seeing things. Bouncing.” He tapped his head. “In here. Over and over and _over.”_ He let out a little hysterical laugh on the last word.

“What kind of things?” she asked.

(emerald - ice shatter - fail safe - no strings - so bright)

(gone)

“Things I did with the Legends.” She was shaking her head, so maybe he wasn’t making sense. He tried again. “Oculus.”

She frowned, and her hand tightened against his. “When you died?”

He reached his other hand out towards a phantom fail safe.

(no strings on me)

(but there are they’re all pulling every which way at once)

He shook his head hard, looking up at her as another wave of desperation flooded over him. He had no words for any of it.

Her hand was still on his. He closed his eyes, leaned into it. She was so warm.

(safe)

“What’s causing it?” she asked. “The - bouncing?”

He laughed again. “Hell if I know. Wish I did.”

She pulled away. It was cold on his cheek where her hand had been and he _missed_ her. “I’ll be right back. I just want to get you—”

“No. Please.”

God, it had been a long time since he’d let himself sound that pathetic in public. He probably looked it, too - her eyes widened and she sat back down. “It’s okay, Leonard,” she said again.

He didn’t contradict her, this time. He just wanted her to be right.

Later, he would say that he had no idea how it happened. But there was another part of him, a deeply-buried, honest part, that knew he just didn’t want to be alone.

Fuck it. He’d been thinking about her _that_ way for a long time, and he just wanted one good thing.

He was kissing her soft, full lips, his arms around her in a tight embrace, and as long as she didn’t let go, he could believe her that it was going to be okay. And - no, he wasn’t imagining it - she was kissing him back, her hands tight on the back of his head.

 _Wanting_ was always a mistake.

Len didn’t know who pulled away first. Both of them at once, probably.

“Oh god, Leonard, I’m sorry—”

“No. I am.” He stood up, backing away. He didn’t look at her. The last thing he needed to see on her face was more fucking _pity._ “My fault. I’m— I’m sorry.”

He managed to get out of there beforethe panic attack hit and he went spinning away through time and space like a sail in the wind, with nothing to anchor him to shore.

* * *

**April 2019**

Following Snart home was easy. For all his bluster about being able to stop a speedster in his tracks, apparently even Captain Cold couldn’t tell he was being tailed by the Flash. Not anymore.

Not since they’d both changed so much.

Barry skidded to a stop in front of a run-down warehouse. Half its roof was missing, ripped open like a scar to the damp Central City night, roughly covered with a tarpaulin that was flapping in the wind. The tiniest light was sputtering behind a single window.

Had Snart been living here all winter?

Barry pushed at the door. It swung easily, silently open. The thought that _Leonard Snart_ hadn’t even bothered to lock his door was worse than everything else, setting something clenching tight in his chest.

The warehouse was chilly and damp, and there was a rotten smell of mold. It was dark inside, save for a single candle on the table, against which the hunched-over figure on the sofa cast a long, gray shadow.

He expected the sigh, but it came after a long, sad silence.

“What do you want, Barry?”

“We need to talk.” He aimed for a commanding tone, but it squeaked at the end. Thank god he’d never tried to play poker with Snart. He wouldn’t last a round.

Snart uncurled himself, stretching out on the couch like a cat. “Do we?” he asked on a flat note, not even a hint of drawl beneath it. He turned his head to glance behind him, and waved a lazy hand, indicating a threadbare chair opposite the couch. “Won’t you sit down, Barry?”

He came forward and sat, not taking his eyes off Snart. God, he was still too thin, shadows still dark under his eyes.

Snart kept his eyes on the ceiling. “I’m sure you have things to get off your chest, don’t you, Barry?”

Barry almost rolled his eyes. Even looking like he was too tired to care, Snart always had him right where he wanted him. Barry sighed. “You robbed a museum.”

“I did.” If Snart was aiming for nonchalance with that drawl, Barry only heard exhaustion beneath. He was torn, suddenly, between a stab of anger and the old, aching worry he’d been carrying for Snart, who had hardly left Barry’s thoughts since his return.

“You promised me. You said you were—”

Barry jumped as Snart slammed a hand down on the sofa beside him. “I promised _nothing_ ,” he bit out.

Running a hand down his face, Barry shook his head at him. He hadn’t seen Snart go full Captain Cold for months now. He’d forgotten how intimidating he could be.

Snart returned Barry’s gaze. “Is this reallywhat you want to talk about, Barry?” he asked quietly, defeat in his voice.

“Are you in love with her?”

He hadn’t met to blurt it right out, but there it was.

In response, Snart’s choked laugh was almost a sob. “For a smart guy, you’re missing half the puzzle, Barry. It’s almost… _slow_ of you.”

Another flare of anger—lightning in the dark. Barry barely caught himself before he could flash Snart against a wall. Just for old times’ sake. “What do you mean?”

Snart stood up, taking a step towards Barry. He was chuckling.

Barry felt his breath coming faster, harsher. “Look, Snart.” He pulled himself up from the chair, till he was eye-to-eye with him again. “I don’t know what’s going on, but whatever it is, we can talk about it, figure it out. I just need to know. Are you in love with her?” He closed the gap between them in one step, putting a light hand on Snart’s arm.

And Snart _screamed_.

Barry pulled away in a literal flash.

Snart had his hands up around his head. “No… no, no,” he muttered, turning away. “Too many roads…”

Then he looked back at Barry in horror. “What did you do?”

His head buzzing with - something, Barry shook his head. “Snart, I—”

An explosion of blue light.

A noise.

Like the universe ripping itself apart.

Then they were tumbling through darkness. Both of them. Barry could feel, more than see, Snart falling through _nothing_ with him.

They landed with a bump on a grassy outcrop of land. Barry felt his hands come up to his head, shaking off the disorientation. He blinked hard and looked around.

The morning sun was rising behind him. Far ahead rose the towers and skyscrapers of a city he didn’t recognise.

Barry knew time travel - god, he knew it all too well. And he always had a sense of how far he’d come. Right now, he couldn’t feel how far from home he was.

At the sound of retching, he looked back to see his friend, white and shaking. With a stab of concern, Barry reached out to touch him, and Snart took an unsteady step backwards.

“Don’t,” he snapped. “You’ll make it worse.”

Barry shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

Snart dragged himself upright, lines of fear etched around his wide eyes. He ran a hand across his head. “Neither do I. You’re not supposed to come with me.”

A slow wave of panic was washing over Barry. “Come _where?_ Snart, where have you brought me?”

“Nowhere I meant to,” Snart answered, a hint of apology in his voice.

Barry looked up as the plane - or was it a _spaceship?_ \- took off above them, heading almost straight up through the clear sky above them, until they couldn’t see it anymore.

“Barry, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Central anymore.”

“Nope,” rang out Iris’s clear voice behind them, as they both whirled around to stare at her. “I don’t think we are.”

 _I've faith that there’s a soul somewhere that's leading me around_ _  
_ _I wonder if she knows which way is down_


	3. Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stuck in the future and hiding out to wait for their return, Barry and Len have a confrontation.

“Well, isn’t this a pickle,” Len drawled.

“Snart, where the hell are we?”

Len tilted his head as sarcastically as he could manage. “Gee, Barry, let me just get out my time travel GPS and I’ll locate us in the time-space continuum for your convenience.”

He got a look back so intimidating, he had to fight not to back away. Barry wasn’t a friendly guy when he was angry, and Len was all too intimate with the speedster’s temper from many a heated encounter in the past. Fighting a memory of being shoved up against a fireplace at speed, he covered it with a scowl and a kick in the dirt. This was hardly a good moment to get lost in his own head. Or his own timeline.

Barry was glaring at him. “You said you can see where you are. You know - in time.”

Len shrugged. “Sometimes. It comes and goes. Not something I’d recommend relying on.”

“But—”

“Barry, Leonard - stop bickering and look at this! It’s amazing.”

Iris had wandered to the edge of the river bank and was staring at the shimmering city on the other side. And wasn’t that just like her? Running towards the adventure - not for heroism’s sake, or personal gain, but for the joy of the adventure itself. For answers to questions. Len found himself smiling at her, while she was still looking in the other direction.

Then he felt Barry’s eyes on him, and he turned away.

He walked off a little, dropping to the ground with his back to a tree, staring up at the sky. Another futuristic craft was sliding into the blue above them. Despite what he’d just said to Barry, a gauge in his head was slowly starting to calibrate itself in the timeline. It was still vague, but something was troubling him. He couldn’t put his finger on it, though, so he shrugged it off for now.

“What do you do to get back?” Barry was asking.

He raised his eyebrows at the ever-impatient speedster, who was practically vibrating with frustration. Not Len’s problem. “I wait.”

Iris turned around, her eyes widening a fraction. “Wait? For how long?”

He shrugged. “Longest was ten days. Germany, Middle Ages. The Plague.” He heard himself trying to keep his voice casual, and failing. That had not been a good way to find out just how long he could last in a place where he didn’t speak the language and everything was trying to kill him at once. After a few days, he’d crawled into an abandoned commoner’s hut and just... waited to die. Never had he been so sure he was done for. Not even at the Oculus.

Iris sat down opposite him, sliding an offered hand across the ground in front of him. She had clearly clocked something in his face, her eyes sad. He glanced away, pretending he didn’t feel the knot of shame in his stomach. He didn’t want to be a fucking open book, but apparently that was what he was, these days.

When he didn’t take her hand, she moved it to his knee. He wanted to ask her how she did that - set butterflies fluttering in his stomach like he was a teenager again. He didn’t. 

“How have you been surviving, Leonard?” she asked, her voice soft. 

He wanted to be irritated at the show of sympathy, but it was Iris. He couldn’t be. He wiggled notoriously sticky fingers at her. “My survival skills are legendary.” She snorted at the pun, and he didn’t tell her it was accidental. People always liked it better when they thought you were just that clever.

Iris glanced up at her husband, who was very clearly trying not to look at either of them, and withdrew her hand from Len’s knee. “Barry, you can run back through time. Can you get us home?”

He shook his head. “I’ve never taken another person with me. It’s theoretically possible, but I have no way of knowing—” He cut off, frowning at the river.

Len raised an eyebrow. “What Barry’s trying to avoid hurting your delicate sensibilities by not saying, Iris, is that he doesn’t know if every molecule in your body would be shaken apart if he ran with you at that speed. You might not make it back home in one piece with him.”

Barry nodded glumly, then turned a suspicious look on Len. “You’ve never traveled with anyone else, have you?” Len didn’t bother with an answer. “How do you know we’ll come with you when you… leave?”

He raised an eyebrow at the speedster, aiming for sardonic. “I don’t, Barry. But in case you hadn’t noticed, we don’t have much choice but to wait and see what happens.”

“Fine,” Barry muttered, sitting down facing the river, with his back to Len.

It was an hour later when Barry finally said it. “We need to get out of here.”

They’d been waiting mostly in silence. Barry and Iris were sitting hand in hand looking out across the river. Len had moved a distance away, walking up and down along the bank. Now he stopped and looked over at Iris, in her jeans and t-shirt. Barry wasn’t dressed much more warmly. A chill in the air signalled this was probably a more northerly city than Central. “Might be a good idea to get indoors,” he admitted.

Iris looked up at him, her eyes sparkling. “If we’re stuck here anyway, I want to see the city.” And how could Len say no to that?

They trudged off, single file. Barry at the front, Iris behind him, and Len at the back, hanging as far behind as he could without losing track of the couple.

* * *

A bridge took them into the city. “Hold up,” Len said, as they approached a street corner. That uneasy feeling was buzzing around inside him again.

Ignoring him, Barry had broken into a beautiful smile. Up ahead of them, a meta girl, maybe in her early twenties, was spinning a ball in the air without touching it. She stopped walking and looked surreptitiously around her. Meanwhile, Barry was looking at her like she was his own kid and he couldn’t be prouder.

Len didn’t know everything about each person’s timeline - the Oculus effects weren’t nearly that specific - but he could see… highlights. And Barry Allen was going to do good things for the meta population, soon in his future. Watching him now, captivated by the meta girl, Len could see it. He couldn’t help smiling too.

That was when the sirens went off.

Len shoved Barry back behind an adjacent wall, pulling Iris by the hand after them. Staring at the ARGUS logo on each of the soldier’s uniforms, he said, “We need to get out of here.”

Barry was struggling against him, watching the soldiers manhandling the girl into a van. There was a dead look in her eyes. She wasn’t fighting back.

“What? No! I need to help—”

“Now,” Len said.

Len felt himself shoved back against the wall, hard, and bared his teeth.

“I’m not just going to leave them to hurt—”

“I _said_ , you need to get us out of here,” Len growled.

Barry’s eyes were already flashing with lightning. Len ignored the churning in his stomach, the dull expectation of violence when he was close to someone that unpredictable, that powerful. “Why?” Barry demanded, an edge of vibration in his voice.

“Because I know where - _when_ \- we are,” Len hissed. “And believe me when I tell you that we do not want to get into a confrontation with those soldiers. Not even you can win that fight.”

Barry held him against the wall with both hands, and Len swallowed down his outburst. He started counting backwards from ten.

He was saved by Iris’s hand on Barry’s arm. “Stop it,” she murmured, low and soothing.

When Barry turned to her, all trace of lightning was gone from his eyes, now just a very human hazel again. _He’d do anything for her_ , said a petty voice at the back of his mind. He ignored it.

Barry flashed out of sight, taking Iris with him.

Len barely had time to give the ARGUS van another look before the speedster flashed back. There was a lurch that turned Len’s stomach - which was already deeply unhappy from his trips through time. Then he settled into the strange feeling of being carried at superhuman speeds. It wasn’t nearly the weirdest thing that had happened to him recently.

In moments, they were all standing at the entrance to a cave.

“Now explain why the hell I just left that girl to the mercy of those soldiers!” Barry demanded, right up in Len’s face again.

Len took a step back. “Watch it, Barry.” He waved a hand in the rough direction of the city they had come from. “This is the 2040s.” At Barry’s dull head-shake, Len added, “Did you see those ARGUS symbols on the uniforms? This is a military state. Anti-meta laws. I’ve been here before.”

Something strange crossed Iris’s face, but she didn’t interrupt.

Barry just looked horrified. “They were taking that meta away… Are you saying she was innocent? Snart, what were they going to do to her?”

“I’d imagine nothing good. Not really our concern, though.”

“How the fuck can you say that?” he yelled. His voice was vibrating again. “We have to go back!”

Snart sighed and just let him get it out of his system, taking another step away. “And do what, Barry? They’ve dealt with speedsters before. You’ll have a whole new problem on your hands in seconds.”

But the grief on Barry’s face was enough to unsettle even Len’s cold heart. That damn hero’s heart of his. It did him no favors. Len smothered an urge to reach out and touch him.

“Listen,” he said, dropping his voice into a more reasonable tone, raising his hands. “I get it. You want to save everyone. But this isn’t your time. You need to take a long view of the timeline. You’re not good at that. But you interfere now, things will happen that will  _directly_ affect you.”

Barry blinked. “How?”

Len raised an eyebrow. “In your case, Barry, time is a circle.” He frowned apologetically at the speedster. “You’re a hero here. You’re MIA, and the resistance is coalescing around you. Don’t know much more than that. I just know that if you change that, you’ll change…” He closed his eyes and searched his mental map of the timeline. Tiny lights illuminated fixed points in time, like a little uneven string of Christmas tree lights. There were more of those points in a speedster’s timeline than in anyone else’s. “...Eobard Thawne,” he finished. “You’ll interfere with his timeline. It’ll be worse than Flashpoint.”

He opened his eyes, and Barry’s face was a raw, open wound. “Right,” he whispered after a minute, and turned away.

“Sorry,” Len murmured. Barry didn’t reply.

Iris was looking around at the jagged rocks and bare trees of the dusty landscape they were standing in. “Where are we?”

“Faris Caves. Kansas,” Barry said shortly. “Only place I know like this for miles around.” With a resentful glance at Len, he added, “I figured out we were in Nebraska from a couple of street signs we passed before—”

Len was already trudging into the rough-hewn entrance to the cave. “Better get settled then. I’ve got to persuade my body to take us on a trip through time.”

* * *

The night Snart had disappeared on them, Barry came home to a hand-wringing Iris. It had been a surprise to hear that she’d kissed Snart, but he was much more concerned about the state of mind she’d been left in. Even if, caught up in the moment, she hadn’t talked to Barry about the feelings that been sneaking up on her (and, he could only assume, on Snart too), Barry didn’t find himself angry. Just worried.

But then Snart went AWOL. All those months Barry and Iris had spent helping him, and he couldn’t even be bothered to talk to them about this. God forbid the guy should be vulnerable with another person - or two. It took every ounce of self-control Barry could muster not to find him and drag him back to the loft and _make_ him have a conversation with them. Especially when he figured out that Snart was back to running crews and robbing banks.

And now here they were, stuck in a cave with the tight-lipped, ridiculously stoic bastard.

There were worse places to hide out, but not many. Iris was picking her way through an inch of water on the floor towards a raised bench hewn into the wall. (“Do you want help?” Barry offered, and got a _l_ _ook_ in return.) He joined her on the makeshift seat, listening to water dripping down the cave walls behind them, while Snart stood at the entrance like a man on a mission. “Sun’s setting. It’ll be dark soon,” said Captain Obvious.

Barry raised an eyebrow. “Is there something you’d like me to do about that?”

When he turned around, Snart was wearing a deeply unimpressed look. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Barry, but we’re stuck out here until I can figure out how to leave. Even if the floor wasn’t covered with water, lighting a fire could draw unnecessary attention. I assume they still have state park rangers in the 2040s. Probably with radio links to ARGUS.”

Pondering that one, Barry narrowed his eyes at Snart. “So get working on it.”

Snart matched him stare for stare for a moment. Then something like defeat flickered across his face. “Fine,” he muttered, staring at the ground as he came towards them, hands outstretched.

Iris shrugged at Barry. “Gotta start somewhere,” she said, and grabbed Snart’s hand.

Barry touched his other hand.

Nothing happened.

Nothing happened the next try, or the try after that.

It was pitch dark when they gave up, Snart splashing away to the edge of the cave.

Barry leaned back hard against the wall, his hand seeking out Iris’s in the dark. He was so very _done_ with this time period. And with this damp, cold cave. And with Snart.

Iris reached back, tightening her fingers around his. Some of the scalding fear coiling in his gut began to ease off, just a little.

“All right,” Snart’s voice echoed into the darkness. “We need a plan, or we’re going to freeze out here.”

“Or get eaten by wild animals,” Barry offered helpfully. Next to him, Iris chuckled, and he squeezed her hand again. He’d always be okay, just as long as she never let go.

“Quite,” Snart replied, in a flat voice. “So. Votes for making a small fire at the entrance?”

The team decision-maker on Barry’s right gave a sigh. “How deep into the park are we here, Barry?”

“Pretty deep. And I brought us a long way from where we were first spotted.”

“Do it,” she said, in that commanding voice that, even in a situation like this, was always a little bit of a turn-on. In no more than a couple of seconds Barry had moved into Flashtime, collected some dry brush from around the cave entrance into a pile, and set light to it.

“Handy,” Snart drawled. In the flickering firelight, with his graceful form leaning against the wall and that old smirk on his face, he had Barry swallowing at the sudden rush of nostalgia and… something else.

“We need to figure this out,” Barry said, joining Iris on the bench again. “It shouldn’t be this difficult.”

“You have no idea,” Snart deadpanned, his eyes distant at the fire.

Barry tapped the bench next to him, suddenly longing for the STAR Labs whiteboard, or even a layer of dust on the ground to scratch ideas in. “Okay. Let’s try approaching this with the scientific method. What makes you go traveling in time?”

The shrug he got back from Snart was exaggerated with bravado. “Don’t know. Nothing consistent.” His eyes flickered back towards Barry. “Stress, sometimes. Or…” He paused. “Fear.” He frowned, turning back to the fire, and some of Barry’s frustration at his nemesis-turned-friend began to ebb away. He was clearly still struggling with all of this.

“So what were you thinking about when we… left?” Barry tried.

Snart stared out into the darkness beyond the fire for a moment or two. Then he cocked his head back at them, looking from Barry to Iris and back again. “You, Iris,” he admitted, his mask falling away to reveal a world of hurt that _got_ Barry in his gut.

Iris was frowning up at him, wheels clearly turning in her head. “But how did you manage to bring us with you? Especially me. I was three miles away back at the loft.” Barry turned a smile on her, bad timing be damned. He loved it when she started figuring things out. She had a mind to rival Leonard Snart’s.

Snart glanced at Barry, his expression still strangely open, before tilting his head back to look at the roof of the cave. “I think it was you. You touched me and something… changed.”

Barry’s face was blank with confusion. “Me?” He frowned. “Because I’ve traveled in time?”

“That’s what I thought at first. Got the very definite impression on the Waverider that I shouldn’t touch Mick—” The look that crossed his features at even the mention of his old partner’s name was heartbreaking, but it was gone as soon as Barry saw it. “But there was something Caitlin said. About strong emotions being a catalyst. Maybe…” Snart drummed long, lithe fingers against the wall behind him. “You put a time-meddling Flash together with _those_ , and maybe things spiralled.”

“Why would you have any strong emotions about me?” asked Barry.

Snart kicked the wall. “Oh, for God’s sake, Barry. Why do you think?” His voice dropped into a mutter, though Barry definitely heard, “...second most naive person I’ve met after Palmer…”

Too late, Barry realised Snart wasn’t breathing easy anymore, and began to push himself up from the bench. “Look, Snart - will you just let us help you?”

Turning a glare on him, Snart snapped, “I don’t want your help! Either of you! Haven’t I made that clear yet?”

“Yeah, well you’ve certainly tried enough,” Barry retorted. “But for someone who doesn’t want us around…” He waved a hand around the cave. “You managed to bring us with you through _time._ So you can keep doing things to distance yourself from us all you want—”

“Oh, get over yourself, Barry,” Snart muttered at the ceiling.

“Barry…” Iris tried to interject. She was looking between Barry and Snart, her hand on Barry’s arm holding him back.

He shrugged it off. He ignored the voice in his head that said that Iris was worth listening to, when it came to his temper, and turned back to Snart. “Are you claiming you didn’t go back to your old bank-robbing life to _piss me off?”_

Snart rounded on him with a snarl. “Actually, Barry, I went back to my old life because being a criminal is the only thing I’ve ever been good at.” Slamming his hand against his chest, he yelled, “And because there’s been a fucking hole in my chest ever since I came back from the dead! Okay? Is that what you wanted to hear, Barry?”

The drip at the back of the cave was all Barry could hear, as all three of them fell silent. The fire inside him was sputtering out already, quenched by that awful look on Snart’s face. Barry took a breath. “Snart, I… Listen, we can figure this out together...”

He was shocked by a barked laugh. “We? Barry, _we_  shouldn’t be doing anything together.”

Barry ignored the warning look Iris was giving him. It clearly read _back off._ Barry didn’t. “What? Why not?”

“Because, trust me, Barry, you don’t want me anywhere near your wife!”

Iris grabbed Barry. “Don’t push,” she mouthed, and he nodded, sitting back down next to her.

Snart had his eyes closed. “When I first came to Central, I…” He swallowed. “I was bouncing around all over the place. First within my own timeline, then way beyond it. Once, I ended up in your loft, just briefly. Gideon had told me to find you, but I wasn’t exactly keen to show my old adversary how weak I was. But there you were.” He nodded at Iris. “And you.”

Lost, Barry said, “And?”

“And me. _Future_ me.” He sighed. “A future me who looked very cozy with Iris.”

A barrage of emotions hit Barry at once, slowly settling into comprehension. “Is that why you stayed away? Why you kept avoiding meeting me?” Snart didn’t answer.

Barry didn’t mention Snart’s comment about all three of them being there together, in his vision of the future. It wasn’t the right... time.

“Leonard,” Iris said, her voice soft. “It’s a _possible_ future. You’ve seen it, so anything could happen. If you don’t want it…”

He winced. “Right,” he said eventually. “Why would I want that.” Barry could hear the period at the end of that question.

In silence, he followed the line of Snart’s gaze up to the ceiling, where shadows were playing against the firelight. He stared at them for a moment. The swirling anxiety was back in his gut. He slid almost unconsciously into an impression of Snart’s drawl. “Sure. Why would you _talk_ about your feelings when you can _r_ _un away_ from them and rob a bank or two, right?” In spite of the tense moment, he heard Iris stifle a laugh at the impression.

Snart’s sigh was almost fond. “What do you want me to talk about, Barry?” And maybe it was a trick of the firelight, but for a moment Barry imagined Snart’s eyes were heavy with unshed tears.

Barry slammed his hands down on either side of the bench and stood up again. “Please,” he said quietly, taking a step towards Snart. “You kissed Iris, and then you _left_. We’re not mad, but you have to talk to us.”

Snart ran a hand across his head. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, looking past Barry to Iris.

She smiled. “I’m not.” She cocked her head at him. “But you know all three of us need to have this conversation, right?”

“And what do you want me to say?” Snart said to the ceiling. “That I have feelings... for you both? Or maybe—” and here he took a step towards them— “that I don’t intend to stop being who I am? Which, as well you both know, is one hell of a thief.” He took another step closer, water sloshing under his feet, and his face was dark with anger. “Or do you want me to say that I don’t know why I’m back and—” another step forward— “whether there was any point to my death in the first place? Or,” he said, on one final step forward, now so close that Barry’s stomach twisted at the pain in Snart’s eyes, “do you want me to tell you that, no matter how fucking terrified I am that I’ll never get these powers under control, I’m _more_ afraid of this thing between the three of us?” Snart was staring, unblinking, at them both. “Is that what you want to hear, Iris?” He cocked an eyebrow. “...Barry?”

And the ground lurched under Barry’s feet, and they went spinning away through time.

The three of them landed in a tangle of limbs on the floor of the loft apartment.

“Awkward,” Snart drawled, and Iris giggled.

Grinning, Snart untangled himself from the heap. He stood up…  

…and collapsed to the ground again.

Barry tuned out Iris’s exclamation of shock. He snapped into first aid mode, dropping to his knees beside Snart, who was unmoving and deathly pale. “He’s not breathing.” He looked up helplessly up at Iris, his mind dulling with panic.

“Get him to Caitlin,” Iris urged. “Go!”

He left her behind, rushing Snart - Len - away to STAR Labs, and he couldn’t outrun that horrible fear settling over him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With huge thanks to Thette for beta reading, and coming up with the reason why Barry wouldn't be able to interfere in the future.


	4. Onward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry doesn't want to lose what they've only just found.

_I poured my heart out_  
_I poured my heart out_ _  
It evaporated… see?_

The first time they talked about polyamory was a long time ago, when they were in college, when Barry had both a steady girlfriend and an on-again-off-again boyfriend, and Iris was coming out as bisexual.

They’d been lazing on his bed at the time, half watching a bad sci-fi movie in the background. Iris had been a tad bored - not that she’d have said so - but Barry liked this stuff, and she liked having him visit her at college. He seemed distracted, though, playing with his phone. She was just considering asking if he wanted to switch to another movie, when an unexpected but fun scene with a threesome began. Just one girl, but she was hot, Iris noted with interest. Barry put down his phone, clearly entranced again.

“Do you think you’d ever settle down with one person?” Barry asked. “Or would you want to be polyamorous?”

Iris hit Barry with the magazine she was reading. “Barry! You of all people should know bi doesn’t mean you can’t be monogamous.” 

He rolled his eyes and grabbed the magazine away from her. “This is not about whether you _can,_  Iris. I just wondered if you’d want to try being with more than one person. There’s lots of ways of making it work.”

She shrugged. “Maybe. If I was with someone who wanted to be with someone else too. Or if I did… Guess it would depend on the people involved,” she said, aiming for a tone that suggested the conversation was over. Barry’s habit of talking over movies was annoying.

Barry had turned away with an unreadable expression. Looking back now, of course, she could read it as clear as any book - that repressed desire that had been in his eyes every time he had looked at her since they were about fourteen. 

The second time they talked about polyamory, it was many years later, they were together, and the conversation had a very different quality.

* * *

Even with all his focus on Len, Barry was aware of Iris pausing at the door to the STAR Labs medical room.

He looked up at her, and smiled in spite of himself. No matter what was going on, she would always be his hero in his darkest hour. “We just found him, Iris.” His voice was soft in a childish impulse to be quiet in a sick room. It didn’t matter though - no noise would wake the unconscious Len. He wasn’t sleeping. He was damaged, maybe beyond Caitlin’s help. “How can I— how can _we_  lose him now?”

Iris sank down into the chair next to him. He felt her hand settle between his shoulder blades.

He pressed his hand uselessly into his eyes.

“Oh, Barry.” He ached at her voice, so sad for him, without a hint of jealousy. “When you fall, you fall hard.”

Taking a shaky breath, Barry reached out and ran a hand across Len’s forehead. It was cold and clammy under his hand. “Did you know?”

She hummed. “Wasn’t up to me to say… but yeah, I thought you were probably falling for him.” He frowned silently, and she added, “When did you figure it out?”

“Not till the cave. Not till he said it.” He blinked more tears away, felt her hand stroking his back. “I’ve wasted so much time.” He tried to laugh, but a little, broken noise was all that came out. “You’d think someone coming back from the dead would make you grab onto the time you had left, wouldn’t you? But I just wasted it berating him for not being a hero. I wouldn’t be much of a hero, either, if the Oculus spit me out with my mind in pieces and kept kicking me around time like a soccer ball.”

“Barry.” She laid her head on his shoulder. “You were both idiots, but that’s not exactly…”

At last he turned his head to look at her. “What?”

“Out of character,” she finished. They grinned at each other for a minute.

“So,” she said, shifting around to look at him properly. “Are we going to talk about this?”

“Good a time as any.” He grabbed her hand. “Are you—” He paused, swallowing. “Are you in love with him too?”

Iris linked her fingers tightly with his. She was staring at Len like she was seeing him for the first time. “I don’t know what I’m feeling,” she admitted, and broke into a fond smile. “It’s nothing like with you.”

He’d waited years to see her look at him like that. And now she was looking at someone else like she loved them, too, and it just _made sense._ He shrugged. “Why would it be?”

Iris laughed a quiet laugh and squeezed Barry’s hand tighter, a reassuring pressure that said it was okay, that she’d never let him go. “If he wakes up—”

“When,” Barry said quickly.

“Sorry. _When_ he wakes up. Are we going to ask him if he wants to pursue this with us?”

Barry blew out a slow breath. “He’s not in a great place right now. Think he could handle this on top of everything else?”

“I think that’s up to him.” She shook her head slowly. “I’ve been having these _moments_ , recently. Not just when I’m alone with him - I guess that’s when it started, but - it’s when the three of us have been together, too. And watching the two of you. Even when you’ve been bickering like two kids pulling each other’s pigtails in the schoolyard.” She kept talking over Barry’s snorted laugh. “It’s all so different, but I can’t help feeling like he…” She trailed off, clearly lost for words.

“Like he could... complete us?” Barry asked, reaching out for Len again with his other hand. He didn’t let go of Iris.

She let out a surprised laugh, shaking her head. “God, Barry, that’s straight out of a terrible romantic comedy.”

His own laugh was soft as he leaned his head on her shoulder. “I don’t care. It’s the only way I can explain it.” There was a quiet moment, and then he added, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Iris murmured, her voice distant.

He looked away from Len - for a moment it felt like tearing himself in two - and glanced back at her. “What?”

“The time you have left,” Iris echoed his earlier comment, frowning. “The Oculus…” She slapped Barry’s arm. “That’s it!” Standing up and all but running out of the room, she called back, “I gotta find Caitlin!”

Barry was left blinking after her.

“Well,” he said to Len, chuckling, “at least I’m not the only schmuck who’s fallen in love with _her._  You’d better wake up, you bastard, ‘cause…” Barry reached out to Len’s unnervingly still form, his hand drifting back to his forehead. He whispered, “I don’t know when you snuck into our hearts like this, but now that you have, I’m not sure what we’re gonna do without you.”

* * *

Caitlin was already shaking her head, looking with concern between the test results on her computer screen and Barry and Iris. “He very specifically told us not to contact the Legends.”

On the other side of the desk, Iris shook her head firmly. “And I’m not suggesting we do. I just said we talk to Gideon.” She looked to Barry for support, nudging him with her shoulder when he failed to respond. “If she’s as discreet as our Gideon, we can trust her not to go blabbing to the Legends if Leonard doesn’t want her to.”

Leaning against the desk next to her, Barry was frowning at the floor. “We do have a direct link to their Gideon through ours now. Wally set it up last time he was here.” A hint of a smile pulled at his lips. “He said he didn’t want us dealing with a crisis alone because they were stuck fighting zombies in 1841. I’m _almost_ sure he was kidding.”

Iris nudged him again. “Do you trust their Gideon?”

He shrugged, a look of helplessness crossing his face. “Maybe? I’m not sure what the relationship is between the two AIs. I asked once, but our Gideon just said something cryptic about how I’d find out eventually…”

Iris held herself back from pushing him any harder. He had _that_ look on his face again. Barry was used to making the tough decisions, the ones that made him feel like he was carrying the weight of the multiverse on his shoulders. Sometimes, no matter how much she wanted to help the man she loved with that burden, the best thing she could was give him space to decide for himself what to do with it.

After a minute he pulled himself up, decision written into his whole stance. “Okay. We call Gideon.” He nodded at Iris. “If you’re right, and she gave him something, medication or whatever, to tether him to the present, then we need to know what it was.”

* * *

Caitlin was perched on the end of Len’s bed, one of her legs folded under her. “You should have told me it was still this bad,” she said, a stern edge in her voice. It made him feel - guilty, maybe. It was an odd feeling.

“Yeah. I know.” He looked down, surprised to see his hands shaking, and couldn’t still them before Caitlin noticed. “I’m…” He took a deep breath. “Doc, I’m a mess.”

She put down her clipboard. “It’s going to be okay, Leonard. We’re going to figure this out.”

“And what if you can’t? Caitlin, I have no idea how to control this thing. It’s gonna tear me apart, literally.” He chuckled, a bitter edge to it. “Or maybe it’ll just drive me insane first.”

(maybe it should)

Her hand drifted nearer, settling on the blanket next to him. “We’ve got some options from the Waverider’s Gideon now.” She pushed the clipboard in front of him. “Do you remember her giving you a treatment before you left the ship?" He nodded. "It's a compound that identifies the tachyons in your system and treats them like a virus. She's shown us how to synthesize it. It should help.”

He stared at the chemical formula on the page in front of him. He wasn’t exactly an expert on the latest iteration of the periodic table, but he didn’t recognise half the elements listed there. Maybe they hadn’t been discovered yet. “And this will stop me bouncing around time?” Her sharp intake of breath said it all. “Ain’t a kid, doc. Don’t patronize me. Just tell me what I’m dealing with.”

“Even Gideon doesn’t fully understand that." She looked up from the clipboard, meeting his eyes. "We can give you this treatment, and we can get you working with Cisco and Harry. They know dimensional travel, and time travel’s not really so different, in terms of the theoretical physics. But we can’t identify the reason for the time jumping, so we don’t know if any of that will stop it. We’re just going to have to see how it goes.”

Len had lived a long time with the knowledge that he was fucked up. Rotten to the center. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling, but it was familiar. This, though? This was on a whole other level. “You don’t know if you can cure me.”

“No,” Caitlin admitted with a slight wince. “You might never fully overcome it. You might have to accept that you’re…”

(broken)

He raised an eyebrow. “Damaged?”

“Disabled,” she corrected.

He didn’t see the difference, really, but he nodded at her anyway. “Got it, doc,” he croaked. The weight of sadness in her gaze was uncomfortable. As he glanced away, he caught sight of a certain speedster pacing back and forth on the other side of the little window in the med room door, and sighed. “Tell the world’s fastest asshole he can come in, would you?”

She nodded, patting the bed and getting up.

“Oh, and Caitlin?”

Pausing with her hand on the door handle, she turned back. “Yes?”

“Thanks.”

She gave him a warm smile - no hint of pity left in it, thank God - and beckoned Barry in.

He stood by the door, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and back again, while Len waited. Wherever Barry was going, he was going to have to get there himself.

Eventually he looked up with a smile. “World’s fastest asshole?”

“Well? You are.”

Barry’s shoulders shook in a little laugh. He nodded at the chair by the bed. “Can I, uh...?”

“Be my guest.”

Watching him sliding into the seat, Len was once again struck by how much the guy still looked like a teenager from some angles - all awkward long limbs and nervous glances. “Look, Len, I’m—” He swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

Len couldn’t quite bring himself to say ‘me too.’ Instead, he went for a sardonic, “We’ve been quite the pair of idiots, haven’t we?”

Barry’s hopeful smile was just about bright enough to light up the room, and Len winced internally. That much sunshine, that much goodness, around Len? He was going to break this guy’s heart. His beautiful wife’s, too.

“Look, Barry…” he started, counting the gray squares on his blanket, even if he couldn’t avoid hearing the watery intake of breath next to him.

“Len, please don’t.”

He sighed. _Buck up, Snart._ He forced himself to smile up into Barry’s devastated face. “You haven’t heard what I’ve got to say yet, Barry.” He caught himself before he could reach out to him, settling for placing a hand on the arm of Barry's chair. “I know we’ve got to deal with this. I’m not gonna run away and leave you and Iris in the lurch, okay? But, I’m…”

_If you leave, there will be a cost._

_Isn’t there always?_

“Shit,” Len said, blinking.

Barry was staring at him so hard, Len could feel the anxiety boring into his skull. “Len, are you still with me?”

He nodded through a shaky breath, bracing himself with a hand on either side of the mattress. As though he could keep time itself from dragging him away if it wanted to. Futile... like everything he was doing right now. “I don’t know which I hate more - that or the disappearing act.”

Barry chuckled and visibly relaxed, resting his chin on clasped hands. “You’ve never really explained it to me.”

“No.” He looked up at this young man, this _hero_ who deserved the world. Len didn’t know if he could give him anything close to that, but he was worth the effort of trying. “What do you want to know, Barry?”

“Is it like a flashback?”

“No.” Definitely not. He’d had plenty of those. “It’s more like my mind goes wandering down a timeline - my own or someone else’s. I can see all the choices, the moments, the… points of light.” Barry raised an eyebrow. “Fixed points. Things that can’t be changed without a lot of destruction.”

A shadow crossed Barry’s face.

Len attempted a shaky smile. “I get lost in it, sometimes. It’s hard to explain. Could you describe what the Speed Force feels like to someone who hasn’t experienced it?”

He shook his head, studying Len with an intensity that was hard to look back at. “Does it hurt?”

(tearing me apart atom by atom by)

“Yes.”

Barry’s eyes were such deep pools, always full to the brim with everything he was feeling. Len wanted to warn him not let himself be that open, that the multiverse would rip him apart if he didn’t put some walls up and protect himself. But he suspected it was too late - and that Barry wouldn’t much like the price tag that came with it.

“I wish I could help,” Barry said, so sincere and _good_ that he had Len biting down on an irrational surge of anger.

If he said a word to this wonderful, hopeless fool, Len was going to screw this up.

Instead, he moved his hand, letting it hover above Barry’s knee. “Can I try something?”

Barry nodded. Len’s hand settled on his knee.

“Well,” Len said when nothing happened, “I guess that’s a start.”

When they couldn’t grin at each other in silence any longer, Barry’s face suddenly crumpled. He bit his lip. “Are you gonna finish what you were saying to me?”

Len met his gaze. “I just need you to give me time,” he found himself saying. “I’m not trying to deflect, okay? I wanna talk, and I— I think I want to give this a go. But I also don’t want to go spinning off into the cosmos when I freak out. Again.” He squeezed Barry’s knee. “Caitlin’s got this whole damn action plan made for me.”

Barry raised his eyebrows. “And you’re going to do it?”

“Apparently,” Len drawled. “It includes  _therapy_ \- you believe that? And I get to be a guinea pig with the geek squad.”

Barry snorted. “Oh, you’ve gotta be loving this.”

He let his head drift back against the headboard, avoiding Barry's eyes. “I’m fucking terrified,” he admitted, hating the way any stranger would be able to hear the _feeling_ dripping through the words.

But this wasn’t any stranger. This was Barry Allen. He cared, and he was good, and he didn’t deserve any more of Len’s shit.

“Incoming,” Barry murmured, reaching out a hand. When Len didn’t pull away, he very carefully, briefly cupped one side of his face. “You take as long as you need, okay? I’m not going anywhere, and neither is Iris.” He let go, with an expression that said he wished he didn’t have to.

Len had to swallow around the lump that had formed in his throat before he could speak again, while Barry just waited.

“Well,” he said at last, “I’m glad you got ‘Snart’ out of your system. I was about to start calling you ‘Bartholomew’ until you stopped.”

Laughing, Barry shrugged. “That would probably have worked.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

They were so busy smiling at each other that they didn’t hear Iris come in. “When you boys are done with... whatever this is,” she said, waving between them cheerfully, “I’ve set up the lounge for a viewing of Star Wars. Just the three of us.”

Len tilted his head at Barry. “Does she really mean Star Wars?”

“Hard to say. She likes to fuck with me about that one.”

Iris flashed them a grin and swanned back out of the room.

“Ever get bored of watching her leave a room?” Len asked.

Barry snorted. “Not that I want to help you objectify my wife, but since she’ll be just as crass to you right back, when she’s comfortable enough - no I don’t.”

* * *

And for a while, Barry thought everything was going a little better. Len was working with Cisco and Harry, talking to Caitlin, and even spending time with Iris and Barry in between - though they were all carefully avoiding the issue of _them._ There had even been a suspicious lack of non-meta criminal activity in Central, that suggested maybe he’d pulled back from his less reputable activities. Barry didn’t ask, though.

One quiet evening, Barry was on shift in the Cortex. He was lounging in front of the monitors, feet up on the desk, keeping half an eye on a map of Central on one screen and watching John Oliver in the background on another. There wasn’t much needing his attention, with the alarms all set up to be automatic anyway...

He was shaken awake by the noise of an explosion somewhere in the building.

A couple of milliseconds later he arrived at the speed lab, skidding to a stop in the middle of a chaotic scene.

A _frozen_ scene.

At the far end of the lab stood Cisco, in full vibe stance, goggles up and hands outstretched, with a breach opening in front of him.

Against the other wall, Len was curled up on the floor, his head buried in his arms.

“Hey, Len.” Barry approached him slowly with his hands open. “Are you with me?”

The silence was terrifying.

Barry took a step closer. “Len? Can you look at me? I just need to know if you’re—”

“Don’t come any closer,” Len whispered.

He stopped up short, fighting his ever-present, anxious instinct to move. “I won’t. Just— Len, look at me.”

Painfully slowly, Len raised his head. His red-rimmed eyes turned an awful gaze on Barry, finally glancing away at Cisco. “I didn’t mean to hurt him. He wouldn’t— wouldn’t _stop.”_

Barry dropped into a crouch a few feet away. “It’s okay. Do you know what you did? How to unfreeze him?”

“Localized time displacement,” he murmured, still staring at Cisco. “He’s in a bubble. Stay away.”

“I will, but can you let him out?”

In a motion that looked like it took every bit of energy he had, Len dragged himself up off the floor. “Don’t move,” he told Barry, and aimed a hand at Cisco.

It was as though the scene sped up in fast-forward till Cisco was in sync with them again, yelling, “—whatever it is you’re doing, Snart!” He blinked at the empty space in front of him, then at Barry. “Hey, where is he? Barry, where did you...”

Len’s retreating parka was disappearing through the door.

Barry laid on a hand on Cisco’s shoulder. “Hey, man, you okay?”

Cisco threw up his hands, which had the useful side effect of closing the breach. “Oh, you know, just a little confused! Snart was getting grouchy, and random shit started flying around, and I opened a breach to stop it flying directly _at_ my head, and then something _exploded.”_ He shot a worried look at the door. “Did I freak him out?”

“Let me handle it, okay? Just stay here a minute.”

He tuned out Cisco’s stuttered reply, jogging out into the corridor.

Len was slumped on the floor a few feet away with his back against the wall.

Silently, Barry slid down the wall opposite. Holding his tongue ranked among the hardest things he’d had to do in a while, but there was something dangerous in Len’s eyes.

After a minute, Len asked, “Is he okay?”

“Yeah. I don’t think he was trying to hurt you.”

“I get it,” Len said to the ceiling. “He was trying to defend himself. The breach freaked me out, but… I’m the one who’s dangerous. I’m the problem.”

Ignoring the stab of ice in his heart, Barry said, “You’re not a problem, Len.”

There was a flicker of cold rage across Len’s face. “Don’t fucking patronize me, Barry. I’m _trying_ here and it’s not helping. Nothing’s helping.”

Getting angry was a bad idea right now, Barry knew, but he couldn’t stop himself. “What, you thought you’d just learn to control this thing in two weeks, and become some kind of—”

“What, Barry? Finish that sentence, please. Some kind of _superhero?_ Yeah, I guess I did. Should have known better. My life doesn’t work like that.” He slammed his elbow hard into the metal wall behind him.

“Hey. Stop.” Aching to grab him, to _touch_ him, Barry somehow managed to hold back. “Just stop. It’s gonna be okay.”

“No, Barry, it’s really not!” His voice had raised to a yell now. Barry made an effort not to flinch. “I’m just gonna stay… broken. And drag you and Iris down with me.”

Barry shuffled forward and turned around, settling against the other wall next to Len, as close as he could get without touching. He was quiet for a minute, keeping his focus on the floor, as Len choked on ragged breaths.

“No,” Barry said, after he’d given Len a moment. “You won’t. And I know it sucks. We’re all in the dark here. But I know it’s worst for you.” He nearly added that he was sorry, realising just in time how that would sound to Len, of all people.

“You can do better than this mess,” Len muttered. “You can do better than _me_. You and Iris both.”

And something in Barry _snapped_. “Well maybe it’s not about how well we can do!” he yelled, getting up. “Maybe it’s about us caring about you! You don’t have to _be_ anything for us except yourself, Len!”

For a brief second, a hint of fear flickered across Len’s face. And then he was standing too, facing Barry down. “You don’t need any of this.”

“Isn’t that for us to decide?” The anger was already draining away. The look on Len’s face was too awful.

Len glanced away. “I don’t understand. I don’t know what you you _want.”_

Barry stepped towards him, being careful of his own reactions. “Just you, Len. It doesn’t matter if you can’t ever control this thing - we’ll find a way to make it work. All I care about is you.”

Staring at him for a moment, Len tilted his head. He let go of the fists clenched at his sides. “Oh,” he said. He raked a hand across his close-shorn head, laughing a little.

Barry reached out a hand toward him, stopping just short of his upper arm. “What do you need, Len?”

“Just don’t leave.”

“I won’t.” Barry took a deep breath. “In the interests of open communication, you should know that I really want to kiss you right now, and that I’m aware that the timing is really fucked up. And also that I might throw us both into the 2150s, or something.”

“Specific,” Len murmured, taking a step forward to close the gap between them. “Let’s take this—” he said, his hand coming up to Barry’s face— “one step at a time.” His other hand came up, cupping Barry’s face on the other side. And then, Len very gently kissed him.

In the real world, there was no flash of light, and the ground didn’t lurch away beneath their feet. But that didn’t stop Barry’s stomach from dropping, his heart thumping frantically in his chest. For a man who had literal lightning in his veins, the spark between the two of them felt just as electric.

When Barry opened his eyes, it was to see Iris leaning lazily against the opposite wall, watching them with a sly smile.

“Oh, thank God,” she sighed. “If you two hadn’t got to that soon, I was considering locking you in a room together until you did.”

Barry and Len glanced at each other. “Did we deserve that?” Barry asked.

“Oh, definitely.”

“Please,” Iris said, grinning, “don’t stop on my account.”  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 5 will be the last chapter (I think!) and will be set just after part 2 in this series, [How To Date A Supervillain](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17370320). So if you've been waiting to read that, now's the time! But it's totally optional - the last chapter will still make sense without it.


	5. Choices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Len makes a choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor chapter content warning for discussion of a past near-death experience (in the second scene), but not at all graphically described.

_Blind man on a canyon's edge of a panoramic scene_ _  
_ _Maybe I'm a kite that's flying high and dangling on a string…_

**June 2019**

Barry pulled back from what Caitlin was calling ‘STAR Labs: Project Snart’. With Len working so closely with Caitlin and Cisco, and Harry whenever he was back from Earth-2, there wasn’t much need for him. And, as Iris reassured him, “When you’re in a relationship with someone, you probably want to be focusing on that, more than on supporting them with their, uh, meta… needs?” When Barry raised an eyebrow at her, she said, “Okay, whatever you’d call these - God, if I say ‘needs’ one more time I’m going to hate myself. Issues?”

“I don’t think there’s a word for it,” Barry said. “It’s not like there’s a health and social care program for people who are unstuck in time.”

Iris snorted. “If there is, STAR Labs is currently running it.”

He frowned at her across the dinner table. “But you don’t think we should be helping anymore?” He didn’t quite see the problem, but these days he tried to listen when she saw the bigger picture before he did. And when it came to Len - God, did he need her. If Barry and Len had been alone in this relationship, the two of them would still be sniping at each other. It had taken all three of them to find their messy way through their complex circumstances. And one day, Barry thought, the three of them could be quite the unstoppable team.

Iris was shaking her head. “I just think we should pull back a bit. For a while, I think you were the only thing keeping him going. But he needs to do that for himself.”

Barry pushed his salad around his plate. “What if he goes off the rails in… other ways?”

She raised an eyebrow. “You mean what if he decides a criminal life is the way to live?”

“Yup.” The thought scared him. Len had been fulfilled enough by that life once before, a life that could put distance between him and Barry and Iris.

She held his gaze across the table. “Then that’s his decision.”

He paused, staring back at her. “And what - that’s it? No ‘All we can do is show him that we think he can do better’?”

Her eyes went a bit distant. “No. We show him we value him no matter what he chooses. Are you really telling me you’d love him any less if he made choices we wouldn’t? When we’ve had all kinds of... advantages that he hasn’t, people and resources there to help us make better choices?” At Barry’s stunned shake of his head, she said. “Okay then. Good.”

While she reached across the table for more breadsticks, he snuck a dazed smile at her. There wasn’t a day that went by when Barry didn’t feel like the luckiest man in the world that he got to be married to this woman.

She looked up and raised an eyebrow. “What?”

He shook his head, as lost for words as he so often was around her. “How d’you get this wise?”

“Central City High Class of 2007,” she said through a mouthful of bread. “High achievers.”

He grinned. “Yes we are. You can tell from our SAT scores. Well, mine, anyway.”

Half a breadstick came flying at his head.

* * *

In the dark bedroom where three people more often slept now, rather than two, Iris startled awake. On her right, Barry’s even breathing was familiar and reassuring.

There was a still-warm empty space on her left.

Quietly, being careful not to jostle Barry, she slipped out into the living room.

The scene hit her in a rush of deja-vu. Leonard was silhouetted in the window against the city lights. His form cut a sleek figure in loose pajama pants rather than a parka this time, showing that he wasn’t nearly as emaciated as he had been six months ago, but otherwise, he hardly looked different than on that first, unexpected visit he had made to them.

But everything was different.

He turned his head slightly to indicate he had heard her.

“Hi,” she said softly. Her instinct was to slide in and wrap her arms around him from behind, like she so often did with Barry. But this was Leonard. Constantly anxious, especially in these post-Oculus days, and not always so fond of touch. She approached him slowly, instead. “Is everything okay, Leonard?”

He drew in a shaky breath, and raised a hand that he wobbled back and forth. In a quiet but not panicked voice, he said, “Talk to me, Iris?”

She stepped up to the window, leaning against it so that she was facing him without blocking his view of the city. “Of course. Did something happen?”

He shook his head. “Didn’t go anywhere. It was… just a dream.”

“What did you dream about?”

“Not sure, but I think - the Oculus.” His eyes narrowed at the window, and Iris was amazed to see them filled with tears. “I died, Iris.”

Iris and Barry hadn’t gone near this topic since Leonard’s return, and treading carefully was a good idea. So her only answer was a quiet, “Yes.”

“I’ve never remembered it so clearly. It’s like I’m—” A tight shake of his head. “Like it’s still happening.”

At his sharp intake of breath, she asked, “Can I touch you?”

He reached out a hand towards her and she grasped it tight. “Feel that?” He nodded blankly at her. “That’s real. Where are you?”

In a thin voice, he answered, “Here.”

“When?”

His “Now” was a little stronger.

She nodded firmly, squeezing his hand. “You’re here and now, and we’re together. Don’t get lost, okay?”

“Okay.” He gave a grateful little laugh, finally looking up at her. “God, Iris - what would I do without you?”

She stepped closer, telegraphing every move, but he didn’t pull away.

“Hot beverage?” she asked when she’d untangled herself from his eager arms. “I seem to remember you like cocoa.”

He grinned, scratching the back of his head. “Would you judge me for having a whiskey at 2 in the morning? There’s something I want to tell you about. Might require alcohol.”

They curled up on the couch. It was becoming their thing, ever since that first bottle of Merlot in front of the fire together, all those months ago. They were all getting used to negotiating each others’ comfort levels around space and contact, but now he reached out for her like he needed her. “Talk to me, Leonard,” she said, when the silence stretched on long enough that she started to worry.

“I’m good. Just trying to figure out how to put it into words.” He curled his hand around hers. “When I was sixteen, I nearly died,” he said, startling Iris with the unprompted reminiscence. Even now, Leonard didn’t really do that. She could make some guesses as to why. She tightened her hand into his, and listened. “You probably don’t want to know what happened,” he continued, his voice betraying the barest hint of a tremor. “I was in the hospital, alone. It was the middle of the night. Was thinking maybe I wasn’t going to make it. Guess maybe I’d given up, I don’t know.” Iris was careful not to react to that, but he was looking away from her, his face turned towards the darkness. “Out of nowhere, there was this light. I remember thinking they must have given me the good drugs, ‘cause it was the weirdest blue I’d ever seen, and there was - there was a man inside it. Still thought I was hallucinating, but I also knew it was me.” He turned to glance at her, smiling a little. “If you think that’s weird, it was the second time I met my older self as a kid. Time travel shit is crazy,” he muttered. “And this older me, he said something that made no fucking sense. He said I was going to get through this, and that I was going to do great things.” He poked her lightly in the side. “You tell Barry this and I’ll deny it to my dying breath, but... He said that one day I’d be a hero.”

She stayed silent for a minute longer. Iris had never considered that he might travel to meet himself, though she probably should have. Reflecting on his words to himself, she wondered what else he was going to do.

“I’m living on borrowed time.” He chuckled. “Stolen time. And I—” She watched his throat ripple as he swallowed. “Iris, I don’t know if I want to do great things. I never wanted to be good at anything except thieving. But I want to know what I could do with these powers. And if there’s a cure... I want a real choice.”

“Leonard, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying I want to go back to the Oculus.”

She turned her head to look at him properly. “Run that by me again?”

He pulled away a little. “Guess that sounds kinda batshit, but we’ve all had some practice with that recently.” He sighed. “Don’t know if I can explain it. Just think the answers might be there.”

Even now, conversations with Leonard could be challenging. He was jumpy. Topics were off-limits. The Oculus was still foremost among those. “Leonard, I don’t mean to poke at old wounds, but you’re still getting lost in the timelines of half the people you come into contact with.” She threw up a helpless hand. “Last week Cisco had to open a breach and pull you out of a dimension he didn’t know existed. And this is the place where you _died._ What’s to stop you from going back there and just… never coming back?”

“I am,” said Barry’s voice behind them. Iris turned to see her husband at his sleepy cutest, soft bed hair sticking up in all directions. “If you’re really gonna go,” he said to Leonard, “then I’m going in with you.”

Leonard had an uncertain look in his eyes as he watched Barry sit down on the armchair across from them. “D’you think this is crazy?”

Barry’s smile at him was soft, sparking something warm in Iris’s chest as Leonard’s face relaxed into a half-smile of his own at her husband. She could watch them look at each other like that all night. “Actually,” Barry answered, “I think it makes a lot of sense. If you’re sure.”

He nodded, stroking Iris’s hand with his long fingers. “I still don’t know why I’m back. Think that might be the key to figuring out what to do with the whole time-jumping thing. There are whole chunks - maybe whole years - missing from my memory, and…”

“And you need to fill in the blanks of your story,” Iris mused, when he trailed off.

He raised a curious eyebrow at her. “My story?”

She smiled, reaching out to trace the line of his jaw. “That’s what we’re all made of, in the end.”

Barry chuckled. “Iris West-Allen, ever the reporter,” he said. “Stories, eh?”

“Oh shush, and I suppose you think we’re all just made of atoms?”

“Who ever said anything about _just?”_ Barry retorted, pulling his legs crossed underneath him. He had that look on that face, the one that warned of an incoming explosion of science talk. Iris would never admit how cute that was, just rolling her eyes as he launched in. “The cosmos is _far_  more mysterious than we’ll ever understand, and we’re unbelievably privileged to live here. And all that mystery is built out of teeny tiny atoms. It’s incredible.”

“Uh huh. Hey, Leonard, you have first hand experience with some of this _mystery_. Tell Barry being poetic about science doesn’t change how confusing it is, would you…?”

When she got silence from her left, she turned in concern to look at him. But by now she knew the difference between a Leonard who was lost in a mental map of the timeline, and one who was just deep in thought, his gaze distant. “Hey,” she said, with a hand on his arm.

He blinked. “Sorry.”

Barry was frowning at him. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I just realised what else we’re going to need to get me in and out of the Oculus safely.”

“And…?” Iris prodded.

In answer, Leonard reached down for a box under the coffee table, pulling out a square device a little larger than a smartphone and setting it on the table. He tapped the blank screen, and a single contact appeared on a page that clearly had room for more.

_Mick Rory, Waverider_

“I think,” he said, after a moment staring at the name, “it’s time to bring in the Legends.”

* * *

The Legends arrived.

As much of a chaotic mess as ever, but full of new faces that looked like they were a better fit there than Len had ever been. He stood in a corner of the Cortex. Smiled at Sara. Gave Ray an eyebrow raise, then had to let Barry physically step in to stop the guy from throwing his arms around Len. He was half-chuckling to himself about how it wasn’t always so bad having to be careful of touch from time travelers, when he looked up… and saw _him._ Striding into the room, a familiar grip on his heat gun, an unfamiliar black jacket.

“Ship’s parked,” he said to Sara, who said something technical back to him that, if Len didn’t know better, could have been a captain talking to a trusted lieutenant.

“Back in a few,” Len murmured, as he passed Barry, who narrowed his eyes in concern, but said nothing.

* * *

Leaning near the open entrance to the particle accelerator, Len recognized Mick’s approaching footsteps long before he said anything. A familiar shadow fell next to him, and for a minute, the almost-companionable silence reminded Len of old times.

“You done being an asshole yet?” Mick’s gruff tone said, at last.

Len turned his head to take in his old friend, who was watching him with trepidation. “Am I ever?”

Mick’s barked laugh of relief set something warm curling in Len’s chest. Something he’d been missing.

Turning back to face the open door again, Len asked, “How’ve you been?”

A grunt. “It’s been a long three years.”

Len just nodded.

“You?” Mick asked a moment later.

Sighing, Len leaned sideways against the accelerator entrance. “I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch. Things have been…” He shook his head. “Dying and coming back to life again. Turns out, it ain’t much fun.”

Mick grunted again, this time an affirming, sympathetic noise, and Len raised an eyebrow. Len had always understood Mick, whether he was offering extended monologues on the virtues of fire, or having one of his quiet days, when he had less to say. But since the Legends had arrived at STAR Labs, Mick had barely said five words at a time.

(things change)

Mick nodded down at Len’s gloves with a questioning look. Len raised his hands to show off the Cisco Ramon special. “First part of a super-suit Ramon’s been dying to design for me.” He turned his hands, examining the textured fabric. “I have a habit of getting lost in the timeline of anyone I touch. One way or another.” He shot Mick an apologetic glance. “Especially time travelers.”

(karma’s a bitch)

Mick raised one of his own gloved hands where it almost seamlessly blended with the black jacket that, Len noted, was a pretty badass look. “Even I got a uniform,” Mick said with a wry grin. His smile dropped away as he added, “And it ain’t like we were ever touchy-feely, is it, Snart?”

Len grimaced at the fucking words that wouldn’t fucking come. Not even for his first, and maybe still his only friend, who Len had been missing for months. He settled for, “Guess not, Mick.”

“Hey,” Mick said, his voice dipping into something uncharacteristically soft. “I get it.”

“Hmm?”

“Why you couldn’t call. Why you needed to get lost.” He was staring down ahead of them, where the particle accelerator stretched right and left into the darkness. “Been there.” He turned raised eyebrows back at Len. “So don’t go beating yourself up for it, okay? Not when the damn Oculus’ll do that for you.”

Len dropped his gaze to the shiny tiled floor. “Spent a few weeks sleeping on a park bench.” He took a shaky breath. “Couldn’t tell where I was, or - when. Kept going shooting off into the past or future, and I had no idea why or how to stop it. Couldn’t decide if I was still dead, or if I just…”

“Wished you were?” Mick finished. Len just nodded. “That when the kid found you?”

He smiled back up at Mick. “More like when I found him.” And because it was Mick, he said what he hadn’t been able to bring himself to tell Iris or Barry yet. “If it wasn’t for them, I don’t know if I’d have made it.”

In his pocket, Len’s phone buzzed. He pulled it out, reading the message and pocketing it again. “They need us in the Cortex.” He reached out for his friend, remembering just in time not to clap him on the back. Even given Len’s new gloves, Mick’s timeline was a real mess. There were loops, paradoxes, _nightmares_ buried in there that Len wasn’t sure he wanted to see. Not when they were Len’s fault. So he just said, “When this is all over, you want a drink at Saints and Sinners?”

Something warm crossed Mick’s face. “Yeah. That’d be all right.” Then he folded his arms across his black jacket, narrowing shrewd eyes at Len. “So. Red and his girl, huh?”

“Yup.”

“How’d you end up with two of the best looking people in Central City?”

Len aimed for a smug grin. “I’ll have you know, I’m _very_ pretty.”

Mick said, “Sure you are, Snart,” over his shoulder as he strode away.

Chuckling, Len followed him.

* * *

At the whiteboard, Ray was scribbling equations that even Barry didn’t understand. “Len’s tried three times to get to the Oculus,” Barry argued. “How are you going to take the Waverider there, if it’s - what did you call it?” He looked back at Sara over his shoulder. “Time-locked?”

She nodded, stepping towards the board with a glance at Len. “We’ve been back to the Vanishing Point, but only _after_ the Oculus was destroyed. Getting to it before or during the explosion seems to be impossible. Gideon thinks the Time Masters set up a time lock around the explosion to keep it from destroying every moment of time in the universe. Or if not them, maybe the Oculus itself.”

Alarmed, Barry threw his head around to look at Len, but the concept didn’t seem to have surprised him. He was tapping his fingers on the wall behind him. “That’s why I couldn’t get in myself. It’s keeping me out,” he mused, to Sara’s nod.

“We’ve run some experiments - simulations.” Zari’s voice came from behind them - she’d commandeered Cisco’s office chair and was spinning around on it, much to Cisco’s obvious irritation. “Nothing’s getting in or out of the moment the Oculus exploded.” She pointed at Len. “Except you, apparently - when you left.”

“But you think you can get me back in?”

In an incongruously cheerful tone, Ray said, “If we time it right!”

Barry kept Len in his peripheral vision. It wouldn’t be a great moment for him to blink out of the present. “Hey,” he said, coming to stand next to him, while the Legends loudly argued strategy around them. Barry could never tell whether they really were always on the brink of violence, or just sounded like it. “Too many time travelers?”

Focused on the whiteboard, Len shook his head. “It’s not that.” He turned fearful eyes on Barry. “Think I can do this? Go back in there without - losing myself? And get out again?”

Barry took in Len’s twitchy state, and the very public crowd in the Cortex, and decided against grabbing his hand.

And then, with perfect timing, Iris appeared out of nowhere, sliding in against the wall beside Barry, “Of course you can do this,” she said, wrapping an arm around Barry’s waist and meeting Len’s eye. “You’re Captain Cold, biggest badass ever to walk Earth-1. You’ve faced down the Flash himself with nothing but a freeze ray.” Barry chuckled as she carried on talking over Len’s unimpressed _cold gun_. “You destroyed one of the worst threats the timeline has ever faced - maybe the whole multiverse. Just walked in there and blew up the source of their power, like you were born to do it. And now you’re going to get back in there and get it to tell you what you need to know.”

Len, whose eyes had been getting slowly wider throughout Iris’s speech, was now looking at her like he couldn’t believe she was real. “You’re pretty badass yourself, Iris West-Allen. Why d’you think I like you?”

Iris grinned, squeezing Barry tighter. “And what about this one?”

Len shrugged. “Eh, no idea why I like _him._ ”

Not bothering with a protest, Barry just grinned, watching his wife and his lover carry on their good-natured bickering. They might as well be caught in their own little time bubble, safe for just a moment from the turmoil around them. Maybe the Flash would never stop moving from crisis to crisis. But moments like this? They made it all worth it.

Barry’s attention was drawn back to the Legends as, in the center of the Cortex, Sara held up a hand. “Enough talk, troops. We need to agree a plan of action. Ray, Zari - have you figured out how to time Leonard’s arrival?”

Ray gave a grim nod. “There’s a few seconds when the Time Masters’ lock becomes unstable. We need to get you in there at that moment, Leonard. And we’ve gotta be accurate to the millisecond.”

“And when,” Len drawled, “is that?”

Ray hesitated, his pen hovering over the whiteboard. He looked back at Len. “The moment the Oculus goes up in flames. If we’re too early, we won’t get through the lock. If we’re too late…”

Zari raised a hand, flinging her fingers out. “Bang.”

And Barry couldn’t help it anymore. He reached out for Len’s gloved hand, and he held on as tightly as he could. “You’re not going in alone,” he murmured.

“No,” Len said, meeting Barry’s eye. “I’m not.”

* * *

On the bridge of the Waverider, Leonard had his hands on the console. Iris was beside him, ready to step in when her moment came. On the other side of the console, Barry looked every bit the experienced hero in his Flash suit and action stance, eyebrows drawn together in worry, but still in his element. But it was Leonard who was drawing her gaze now, talking to Barry and Sara, more engaged - more _alive_ \- than she’d seen him since he came back. He looked like he belonged there.

When this was all over, Iris thought to herself, there might have to be a conversation about whether Leonard wanted to stay here, on the bridge of the Waverider. And if he did, she’d do whatever she could to make sure he got the chance. It was only the same thing she and Barry had always done for each other. He’d helped her rediscover her sense of purpose, encouraging her back into the career she’d been born for. She wanted Leonard to have that kind of chance.

Because now, standing on the bridge of the Waverider surrounded by heroes, with Leonard at the center, Iris could suddenly see what Barry had always known. Leonard Snart was a hero. An extremely reluctant one, who might never choose the kind of life that Barry and Iris led. After the past few months spent getting to know him as well as she had, she was also starting to understand why _hero_  was a difficult concept for him. (“ _Please,_ Iris, not that word. It brings me out in hives.”) What it cost him to be as selfless as he had been at the Oculus. And yet, he had still chosen to be with Barry and Iris, despite the heroes’ lives they led.

If he really wanted to be a thief, she could live with that. She didn’t need him to change for her. But it shouldn’t, ever again, be the only choice he had.

Silence had dropped over the bridge like a blanket. “We’re in position, Captain,” Gideon said.

Iris stepped forward. Sara gave her a nod, team leader to team leader. “Gideon,” Iris said, a little hesitantly. “We’re in the best place for Leonard to jump into the Oculus?”

“That is correct, Ms. West-Allen. The Time Masters created networks of jump routes in and out of the time stream. We’re now sitting on the edge of a route that leads to the Vanishing Point. Mr. Snart, this is as close as we can get you to the moment that the Oculus explodes. You’re going to have to get the rest of the way yourself.”

Leonard was staring at the console. “Thank you, Gideon.”

Over his shoulder, Iris saw numbers flashing across the screen. “Those mean anything to you?”

He nodded. “The time stream isn’t exactly _outside_ of time. It’s shielded from it.”

“Like when you make a time bubble?”

“Right. And now I just need to extend that shielding to the Oculus.” He looked up at her with the kind of trust that made her heart race. “Ready to be on comms for this, Iris?”

“Comms, in this case, meaning talking through me,” Cisco said.

Leonard rolled his eyes at him. “When did my existence become this weird?”

There was a snort from Barry, who had moved into position next to Leonard. “Welcome to the meta life.”

“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” Iris replied. “Are you?”

“Ditto.” Iris watched as Leonard raised his eyes to meet Barry’s - and everything changed. She suppressed a delighted smile as Leonard pulled himself up to his full height, drew the cold gun in a single flourish, and smirked at Barry with an old, familiar twinkle in his eye. “Ready, Flash?”

Barry pulled up his cowl and moved around the console. “Ready, Cold. Vibe?”

Cisco stepped between Barry and Len, holding a hand out to each of them.

Leonard stripped off his gloves, stuffing them into the pockets of his parka. “Whatever suit you make me, no way it’s gonna be as useful as this thing,” he said.

“Oh ye of little faith,” Cisco griped, and grabbed Leonard and Barry’s hands.

Iris expected them to disappear. She was waiting to take Cisco’s hand as soon as they were gone, ready for him to set up a telepathic link between her and the two of them.

That wasn’t what happened.

There was an explosion of blue light.

A rush of cold air.

The green of the time stream, flashing past.

A noise like the universe ripping itself open—

And the three of them were… somewhere else, standing in darkness as deep as the black of the newborn cosmos.

Then a blue Eye opened an actual lid, blinked, and said in a voice like thunder, “You are here, Leonard Snart.”

“Okay then,” muttered Iris, who was starting to get used to this.

* * *

And then everything exploded into chaos.

Len was curled up in a ball, screaming.

Iris was yelling at the Oculus to stop hurting him.

Crouched next to Len, Barry was desperately asking what was wrong—

Iris blocked everything out and stepped forward. “Hey, Oculus!” she yelled.

Silence. Stillness.

Iris blinked, and found herself next to a frozen Barry and Leonard. _Time bubble._ Her mind barely managed to process the thought, with the sudden rush of something like noise filling her consciousness. She put her hands uselessly over her ears and yelled, “Stop!”

The noise stopped.

“No harm was meant.” The voice echoed in her mind, a single sound that still managed to give the impression of a thousand voices sounding at once. “You exist one moment at a time. It is difficult to communicate… linearly.”

She looked at the frozen scene. “What’s wrong with him?”

“There are elements in his body that cannot exist in this place.”

“Elements? You mean the compound we gave him?” She was trying to look at the Eye. It was painful, like every part of her was screaming to get away from this place. Was this what it was like for Len when he time jumped?

“Yes. It tethers him to Time.” Iris could practically hear the capital T. “These elements will be cleansed from his body and then he will remain here.”

 _No!_ “And what if he doesn’t want to stay?”

“It is of no consequence. He has returned,” the voice boomed. “I believe you would say he has been missed.”

It was like the helplessness she felt in the face of the Speed Force. Yet another great cosmic force from the dawn of the universe trying to tear someone she loved away from her. And Iris West-Allen was not going to stand for that. Even if all she could do was the equivalent of stomping her her foot at it. “Then you should understand that we would miss him if you kept him here with you.”

“You are of no consequence.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure about that?”

The Oculus blinked, as though seeing her for the first time.

Iris smiled. “Let’s talk about free will, shall we?”

* * *

(he was back)

(exploding in blue)

(shaking in a corner)

(stepping between a girl and a fist)

(a fist in his face)

(a blast of ice through a man)

(through a hand)

(through his father)

(a train derailing)

(a mug in his hand)

(a woman in the chair)

(a speedster in scarlet)

(a bright green emerald)

(exploding in blue)

(no strings on me)

* * *

Len was floating.

Somewhere, everywhere, there was a noise.

Slowly, oh so painfully slowly, and in no Time at all, it resolved into a huge Voice, booming in his mind.

“Apologies, Leonard Snart. It was not expected that you would return.”

He tried to reach out a hand for Barry and Iris, and found that he didn’t have hands. He tried to speak, and found that he had no voice. He looked down - without eyes - to see himself unconscious, with Barry and Iris beside him. The scene was frozen in time.

Reaching out with his mind, he begged, “Please don’t hurt them.”

“Of course not. They are your tether.”

Len’s brain, which felt like it was wading through treacle, was stuck on that concept. “My tether?”

“Yes. You came to the one place where you cannot be part of Time, with the things that are tethering you to Time. It was… distressing you. It is better now. You have been removed from your body, so we can talk. This will not cause you harm.”

He stared at Barry and Iris. “How did she even get here?”

A pause, as though the Oculus was thinking. “It seems that you and the speedster both would not come without her. Or perhaps she would not let you come without her. They are excellent tethers, Leonard Snart. You were told that you would need help.”

Yes. It had told him. He remembered now.

In a terrifying rush, he remembered _everything_.

“Oh,” was all he could think of to say.

* * *

He woke up in STAR Labs.

(wrong wrong no no no)

“Hey,” said Barry, catching his hand and holding it tight. So apparently it was obvious that he was panicking.

He pushed himself up on the bed, ignoring Barry’s protests, and looked around.

(not here)

“Where’s Iris?” he asked, and his voice was more frantic than it should have been. “Is she okay?”

“Debriefing the Waverider crew. She’ll be right back.” Barry laid a hand on Len’s back. “Breathe, Len. You’re okay. So are we.”

He closed his eyes and did as he was told, breathing into the strong, safe sensation of touch. Ignoring the irony. This had never been _safe_ before Barry, before Iris. Things changed. Time moved forward. The alternative was unthinkable.

When he could breathe again, he asked, “How did I get back here?”

“You brought us all here, after... The Legends were left alone with Cisco on board and no way to contact us, so they’re a little confused. But, uh, Sara called you something I’m not going to repeat and said it was just like you, so they must be good with it.” Barry pulled away, putting a safe distance between Len and himself. His smile, though - it was like coming home.

Through the next blur of motion and chatter, while Caitlin gave him drugs and set up tests, Len focused on one point in time. One moment.

(Barry.)

As soon as they were alone again, Len said, “I think you’ll probably be safe to touch me now.”

Barry’s smile faltered, hesitant. “Are you sure?”

“No,” Len admitted, reaching out his hand and removing his gloves anyway. He brought a hand up to Barry’s face, stroking his cheek with his knuckles. “But I think I can deal with anything that happens afterwards.”

Barry leaned in for a soft, careful kiss. “Anything?”

Len smiled.

_Can you cure me?_

_You do not need a cure, Leonard Snart. You are who you are._

“Is this a private party?” Iris asked from the door, her voice a teasing lilt.

“Absolutely not,” Len said, letting his voice overflow with all the affection he’d been too afraid to show her for far too long, and reached out for her. Her eyes widened with sudden emotion, and she all but ran to the bed, jumping up next to him. He could feel tears on her cheeks as their lips met. “Hey,” he reassured her. “I’m okay.”

“You’ve been out for two days,” Barry said, his voice low and cautious again.

“Shit.” Len breathed out hard. “I keep doing this to you guys. Sorry.”

Iris shook her head. “Not your fault.” She glanced at Barry. “But, uh…”

Len chuckled, accepting the water that Barry had poured for him. “You want to know what happened.” He ran his hands around the ice cold glass. “We talked.” At their blank faces, he added, “Me and the Oculus.”

Iris reached out, pressing her hand flat against the bed at his side rather than touching him. He appreciated the restraint. “Did you get answers?”

“Some. It’s a little hard to explain. I’ll try, when I can process it. But, uh…”

_Why am I back? What’s the reason for these powers? My - purpose?_

_There is no reason, Leonard Snart. Destiny is no more. You are a random element in a random multiverse. It was not known that you would gain these powers over Time. They have no purpose except that which you give them._

He ran his hand over the rough blanket, real and grounding. He was right here. Not getting lost in his own timeline. Here, with Barry and Iris, who he—

Who were staring at him. Right, he’d been talking. He gave them a smile that he hoped wasn’t quite as shaky as he felt. “I remember everything. And I have a lot to think about.”

Barry nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. “Did it tell you how to cure yourself?”

“No.” Len paused. Putting this into words was a challenge. “I don’t think human beings are meant to have powers over time. It was… random, I guess.”

 _Ain’t you the grand poobah of all of Time?_ How  _did you not know about my powers?_

_Did you not break the strings that bound all things? All things cannot be seen when all things are no longer pre-ordained. You too have choices now, Leonard Snart. You chose to leave, and to cultivate these powers._

_Cultivate?_

He chuckled. “Think I did this to myself. I just kept travelling in time…”

Barry’s eyes were wide. “We did this to you! We trained you—”

“Hey,” Len said quickly, reaching out for him again, a hand on his knee. “You didn’t do anything.” He gave him a half smile. “I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

His eyes stayed a little wild and grief-stricken, but Barry nodded. Len made a mental note that there would need to be a conversation about that, when things calmed down. He didn’t want Barry adding Len’s powers to his tally of shit that he thought was his fault. Barry’s list of those was long enough already.

His memories were still a mess, as though they had all happened at once, but Len remembered something else. “It said I can choose never to use these powers again, and I’ll slowly adjust to being… human again, I guess.”

“Or?” Iris prompted.

He glanced up into her beautiful, thoughtful smile, and smiled back at her a little. “Or I could do great things with them.” He shrugged. “And take what comes with it. No cure for any of that.”

They were all silent for a moment, taking this in.

“And it asked me to stay,” Len said quietly. “Got the sense that I could have… a lot of power, if I did.”

“And?” Iris asked, her voice hesitant.

Len raised a hand, indicating both of them. “Clearly I said no.”

“And it’s not like I’m sad about that,” Barry said in a rush, “but it kind of sounds like it offered you the world. Didn’t you even think about it?”

“I did.”

_Then what am I supposed to do?_

_Live, Leonard Snart. You been given have a second chance. Choose what you will do with it._

He smiled at Barry. “I made a choice.”

Then, leaning back to look at her: “Iris West-Allen. My hero.”

She shrugged in that almost self-effacing way of hers, but there was pride in her smile. “I didn’t do anything you wouldn’t have yourself, if you hadn’t been passed out on the floor.”

“Not the way I heard it. I might never have _had_ a choice, without you.”

Barry was looking between them. “Uh,” he said. “Anyone gonna explain this to me?”

“Turns out,” Len said, “the hero I needed at the Oculus wasn’t the _super_ kind.” He couldn’t look away from Iris’s sparkling eyes. Not till he leaned in and kissed her. As her soft lips met his, he could feel her relief, this incredible woman who had more strength in her than all the meta-heroes in the multiverse. Could feel her welcoming him home.

Still holding onto Iris, Len turned to look at Barry. “Of course, there’s always room for the super kind of hero around here too.”

Barry raised his eyebrows, clearly trying not to smile. “Really? I thought you had that covered.”

Len shook his head at the ceiling. “One day you’ll realise that song’s getting old and play another one, Scarlet.”

And then Barry’s hands were on his face, and Len’s hands were in Barry’s hair, and he was kissing Barry like he was afraid to lose control, desperate to _stay,_ and Barry murmured, “I’ve got you,” and Len believed him. And then Iris’s hands were moving under his shirt, safe and warm and thrilling, and Len muttered something about scandalizing Caitlin, and Barry got up to lock the med room door. And then, at last, Len let it all go, losing himself in his tethers to the timeline, his heroes who would always bring him home.

  
_Or slumped over in a vacant room - head on a stranger’s knee_  
_I’m sure back home they think I’ve lost my mind_

* * *

**  
****Epilogue:** **November 2019** **  
**

For a small coffee shop, CC Jitters had seen more than its fair share of meta drama.  

It was currently the scene for a stakeout between Team Flash and a meta who could shoot fire from her eyes, who was freaking Len out just a little. Not that he was admitting that to anyone. He had ducked down behind the counter, while Barry and Killer Frost ran around putting out everything she was setting alight. It was fine. They didn’t need him just yet.

 _You take one vacation from your sensible job on a timeship, and this is what you get_ , he thought for the fourth time that day. He hadn’t had a chance to say this out loud yet, what with the meta crisis. Damn Team Flash stuff, interrupting his well-crafted snark.

Barry held his hand up to his ear. “Iris, tell me you and Cisco have a solution to this problem? She keeps disappearing when I try and grab her - how is she even doing that?”

Cisco’s voice was first over the comms, ringing in both Barry and Len’s ears. “ _We think she’s doing something with heat convection. And nope, we have no suggestions except the obvious. Sorry, Snart - looks like you’re the ace up our sleeve. You good to go?_ ”

“Ready as ever, Cisco,” Len said quietly. “Flash, get ready to catch me if I pass out.”

“Always,” said Barry’s warm voice in his ear, and Len smiled, ignoring Cisco’s vomiting noises in the background.

“ _Barry, tell Flame—_ ”

“Oh good, he’s already named her.”

“ _—that if she won’t come quietly, we’ll do something unexpected. We should at least give her a warning._ ”

“Heroes,” Len sighed, to no reply from anyone.

As Barry delivered the message to a laugh and more fire from Flame, Len took his moment. He stepped out from behind the counter, cold gun raised. “Might want to reconsider that, Hot Stuff. We wouldn’t want to cross any streams, now, would we?”

“Captain Cold,” she purred, sidling towards him. “I hear you’ve gone and joined the good guys. So disappointing.”

“I like to think of myself as an anti-hero,” Len conceded, ignoring Barry’s snort behind him.

Flame sneered. “Bet you think you’re still as cold as ever, huh?”

He felt his lips pull into a smirk, familiar and yet just a little different. _Time moves forward._ “As a matter of fact, I do. But now? I freeze something else.”

With his cold gun tight in his right hand, drawing her fire, he lifted his left, and froze time.

“You’re up, Flash,” he said. “Show ‘em what a speedster can do with a time bubble.”

The air around the bubble shimmered as Barry entered, grabbed the meta, and moved out again. He was gone, shooting off in the direction of STAR Labs, before Len even realised it. His breath came a little faster as he felt time running back into the bubble like sand through an hourglass.

 _“Leonard,”_ came Iris’s voice over the comms, and he heard the anxiety there that no one but he and Barry ever could, _“are you still with us?”_

He raised a hand to his ear. “All present and correct, boss.”

He caught a groan from Barry, clearly standing behind her. _“Was that a pun on ‘present’?”_

“Fire’s out,” Killer Frost helpfully interrupted, sauntering past him as her hair shifted back to Caitlin-brown. “You’re welcome, by the way,” she added, at least as sarcastic as Captain Cold had ever sounded.

“Thanks, Frosty,” he drawled. “Couldn’t have done it without you.”

Caitlin turned around, grinning, and held out her hand for a high five. Len rolled his eyes, but clapped his gloved hand against hers. Just a concession to a friend.

(oh stop being an asshole and have a little fun), said a voice in his head.

“Everything all right?” Caitlin asked, matching his frown with her own concerned one.

He gave her a nod. “All good, doc. Thanks again.”

Then he raised his hand to the comms again. “Iris? Barry? How about a coffee date back at the apartment?”

“So,” Iris said, as they returned to the apartment laden with coffees that the manager had refused to let her pay for, “Jitters once again plays host to a post-Flash incident cleanup. Hope you’re counting, Barry.” She took the coffees out of the paper tray, setting one in front of each of them. “That’s an iced latte for the walking cliche, and a Flash with an extra shot for the walking ego.”

Barry and Len looked at each other. “Harsh,” Len said.

“But fair,” Iris said with a bit of a wicked grin.

Len sank back into the sofa with his latte, casting an eye around the apartment. He hadn’t felt like staying at Jitters. He wanted to be at home with them, on the sofa where he had first kissed Iris, holding Barry’s hand. The setting was so domestic that, just months ago, Len would have hated it. _Did_ hate it, the first few times he turned up there, struggling to understand why he kept coming back to this apartment. But now, he got it. It was home. Sipping his drink, Len asked, “A lot of Flash stuff really gone down at that place, then? Always seems so quiet to me.”

Barry snorted into his coffee. “Just a bit.”

Len hummed. “Favorite story?”

“Rooftop,” Iris said, sliding her hand into Barry’s.

“Rooftop,” he agreed, his face settling into that soft, incredulous expression he so often got when he looked at her.

Len took another sip of his delightfully chilly latte. “Sounds like I should hear about this rooftop.”

“First time she ever noticed me _like that,_ ” Barry said, with just a tiny edge of resentment, tempered by good humour and obvious adoration.

His wife fake-slapped him on the arm. “Oh, it so was not.”

Under raised eyebrows at Len, Barry said, “It absolutely was, and it took turning up in the Flash costume before she paid attention to me.”

“Oh please - you had to dress up in a cowl before you were brave enough to pursue me!”

Len watched them pretend-bicker for a while, just letting it all wash over him. How Barry looked at Iris like he’d die for her. How her voice softened when she talked to him. The way they both talked about the twists and turns of their past, as though for all their complex history, they’d never choose to go back in time and do it any other way.

He didn’t think he’d ever known anyone who loved each other like these two.

Had never known much love at all, before them. Oh, he’d loved Lisa and Mick, in his own screwed-up way. He was maybe doing a little better at that, now that he was grateful to have them both back in his life. Had attempted something like friendship with Sara and a few others. But he’d never been very good at showing affection to any of his chosen family, no matter how much he’d cared. And no one else in his life had come close to showing him what it meant to love another person.

And then... Barry and Iris.

And this apartment, where he could always, always come safely home to them.

So if he was a little rude when he interrupted Iris in full flow, it was in a good cause.

Leaning forward, he said, “I want to move in.”

Iris stopped talking.

Len looked up into two stunned faces. “Oh. Was that shitty etiquette?” He scratched the back of his head. “Should I, uh—” His eyes drifted down to his plastic cup. “Should I have asked you one at a time?”

He didn’t realise his hand was tapping fast against his chair until Iris grabbed it. “Leonard, breathe,” she said. “No visits to the future tonight, okay?”

Barry shot him a wry smile. “Well. Maybe hypothetical ones are okay,” he said, with a wink.

Under other circumstances, Len would have been congratulating him on the pun. As it was, he was having to cough away nerves that he should not have been feeling. And then he was half imagining his past self glaring at him for _asking to move in with his nemesis and his wife,_ and he had to cough harder, swallowing down a laugh. None of this was going nearly as smoothly as he’d been hoping. “Does that mean you’ll have me?”

Iris was staring at him with a mix of disbelief and concern, the latter probably about the almost-panic attack and all the coughing. “How is that even a question? Len, of course we will! If this is really what you want—” She glanced at Barry, who seemed mostly to be stuck on the disbelief phase, and spluttered out a laugh. “Okay, I have no idea what the etiquette is. Barry, should we talk about this?”

“Probably, but I don’t care,” said a wide-eyed Barry. “Tell him yes.”

And the knots in Len’s stomach untied themselves, thanks to the looks on their faces. He settled back in his chair again, determined to play it cool - hah - after that near freak-out.

“Okay. Good,” Iris said with another laugh of relief. “And I need another coffee if I’m going to handle this, so I’m gonna be over— yeah.” She was still laughing as she got up in the direction of the kitchen, pausing to kiss Len on the cheek as she passed his seat. Her hand rested on his shoulder for a moment. _Play it cool, Snart,_ he told himself again, and then found himself beaming at her as she walked away, like he’d misplaced his brain entirely.

But Barry hadn’t noticed, clearly lost in his own utter adoration again. “She forgot to ask us what we wanted.”

“It’s cute that you find that endearing.” Len narrowed his eyes at Barry, quietly asking, “You’ve loved her for a long time, haven’t you?”

“Yes.” Barry was watching her at the coffee machine. “And I will until the end of my days.”

Len paused. It was the kind of statement that, before he met them, he would have mercilessly mocked. Now he chose his words carefully when he said, “You, my love, are a hopeless romantic.”

And then Barry turned an adoring look on _Len,_ and his breath caught in his throat. It wasn’t the same way Barry looked at Iris, but it was just as real. “You two are pretty epic,” Len said, to cover his discomfort at being looked at like that. “Almost like you were destined to be together.”

And Barry smiled. “It wasn’t destiny. Wasn’t even all good choices. It was just enough right ones, and just enough love.” He reached out hesitantly. Len met his hand halfway, linking his fingers into his lover's with ever-increasing ease.

“ _Utterly_ hopeless romantic,” Len said with a smile.

“You love me this way.” Barry’s eyes were a little glassy.

Len raised his eyes to the kitchen counter, where Iris was wrestling the coffee machine, and met Barry’s eyes again. “That I do.”

(now.)

“Barry,” Len said, raising his voice so Iris would hear him in the kitchen.

“Mmm?”

He leaned forward again. “In about thirty seconds, someone’s going to appear in this apartment, probably in a flash of blue light. Whatever you do, don’t say a word.” He looked up at Iris, coffees in hand, who nodded her understanding.

Barry’s eyes grew wide. “This is it? The first time you came here, after…?”

“Just keep doing what you’re doing,” Len said.

Barry was quiet for a minute, not breaking his shared gaze with Len. Then he sat back with a wicked grin. “So, in the interests of household harmony, you should probably know in advance about her cooking and my timekeeping.”

Len would have denied it if either of them asked, but he was little overwhelmed. He closed his eyes, as Iris’s approaching voice, full of the promise of laughter, said, “I think it’s a little late to break the news about either of those, babe.”

Barry’s insistent tones just kept ringing out. “And we should talk about how you’re going to handle living with us and working on the Waverider.”

He heard Iris huff a laugh. “Even if he didn’t have powers that let him manipulate time and space, Barry, there are such things as jump ships and time couriers. If Sara and Ava make it work, so can we.”

“I’m just saying, we should make sure he doesn’t over-use his powers for commuting purposes and make himself sick. And you know what he’s like with...”

He tuned out Barry’s chatter, just listening to the soft, familiar baritone of his voice, feeling Iris’s arms as they came up around him from behind.

He barely noticed the flash of light in the corner. The curse of surprise and disbelief. He remembered, though. He’d been lost and alone, until he got a glimpse of the future. And then he just kept coming back, until they all made it happen.

Allowing himself a single moment, he turned around, locked eyes with himself and nodded, just once.

Then he turned back to his partners, leaning back into Iris’s hold around him, ignoring the light as it flashed again. That moment had mattered, but it wasn’t him anymore. Time had moved forward. He existed in one moment - there, and then, with Barry and Iris.

And all he wanted was to stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! Thanks so much to everyone who's read and commented - I really enjoyed writing this one!
> 
> Thanks so much to Thette for beta reading this whole thing like a champ, and lots of plot brainstorming help. Plot credit also goes to Doctor Who for inspiration for the 'time locked' Oculus and for Iris's comment about how we're all stories, in the end. (Just make it a good one, eh?) :)

**Author's Note:**

> Hat tip to [Tobyaudax](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tobyaudax/pseuds/Tobyaudax) for clueing me in to how much of a post-Oculus Leonard Snart song [Evaporated](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFBnFyk6VoU) is!
> 
> All comments welcome, from an emoji or one sentence, to an essay! ❤️
> 
> Follow me on [tumblr](https://sophiainspace.tumblr.com/), [dreamwidth](https://sophia-catherine.dreamwidth.org/) or pillowfort.


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